MOSCOW, May 3. /TASS/. Ukrainian forces have violated ceasefire regime in Donbass 36 times over the last 24 hours, shelling nine settlements of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), DPR defense ministry told the Donetsk News Agency on Sunday.
"Over the last 24 hours, we registered 36 shellings by Ukrainian armed forces. Military equipment was used against the positions of the self-defense forces and residential areas of the republic. The territory of DPR was shelled from artillery five times, from mortars - 16 times, from ICVs [infantry carrier vehicles] and APCs [armored personnel carriers] - tree times. Apart from that, there were six shellings from tanks, five from small arms and rocket-propelled grenades and one from anti-aircraft autocannon," the DPR defense ministry said.
Nine settlements of the DPR came under fire, including Donetsk, where four hot spots were registered. "The [Ukrainian] forces shelled the Kievsky district of the capital, territory of the [Donetsk] airport, Oktyabrskaya mine and Volvo Center," the defense ministry said. "The Ukrainian armed forces also launched attacks on Yasinovataya, Gorlovka, Shirokino, Novomarievka, Nikolaevka, Spartak, Sakhanka and Grigorovka," it added.
Residential houses were destroyed in the shellings, the ministry’s spokesman said. "There is no information yet on whether anyone was injured among civilians, self-defense forces or Ukrainian forces," he noted.
Ceasefire in eastern Ukraine is one of the key point of the Minsk agreements on the Ukrainian settlement. Other points include heavy weaponry withdrawal, prisoner exchange, local elections in Donbass and constitutional reform in Ukraine.
The Minsk accords were signed on February 12, after negotiations in the so-called "Normandy format" in the Belarusian capital Minsk, bringing together Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The talks lasted for around 14 hours. Simultaneously, a meeting of the Contact Group on Ukrainian settlement was held in Minsk.
The Ukrainian forces and the self-defense forces of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics have repeatedly accused each other of violating ceasefire and other points of the Minsk agreements.