MOSCOW, June 12. /TASS/. The Ukrainian army has violated the ceasefire regime 36 times over the past 24 hours, the Defense Ministry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) said Friday.
"The DPR Armed Forces have registered 36 cases of ceasefire regime violations on the part of Ukrainian servicemen," the Donetsk News Agency quoted a ministry spokesman as saying.
Several districts of the city of Donetsk, the airport, the city of Gorlovka as well as the localities of Spartak, Lozovoye, Kalinovka, Golmovsky and Zaitsevo came under Ukrainian fire.
According to Donetsk City Administration data, two people were killed in the shelling, and another two wounded.
Meanwhile, the headquarters of Kiev’s military operation against Donbass claimed that militiamen shelled the positions of the Ukrainian army about 30 times.
Kiev has regularly violated the ceasefire regime imposed in line with the Package of Measures on implementation of the September 2014 Minsk agreements. The Package (Minsk-2) was signed on February 12, 2015 in the Belarusian capital Minsk by participants of the Contact Group on settlement in Donbass.
The Package, earlier agreed with the leaders of the Normandy Four (Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine) first of all envisions an overwhelming cessation of fire and withdrawal of heavy armaments to create a security area in the region at least 50 kilometers wide.
The constitutional reform and decentralization of power in Ukraine are also among the document’s key provisions. The renewed fundamental law should enter into force by the end of this year. The Package of Measures stipulates the holding, in districts with a special status, of local elections, agreed with representatives of the region and corresponding to OSCE standards.
A coup occurred in Ukraine in February 2014. Mass protests soon erupted in Ukraine’s southeast, where local residents did not recognize the coup-imposed authorities, formed militias and started fighting for their rights.
Ukrainian troops have been engaged in fierce fighting with local militias during Kiev’s military operation, underway since mid-April 2014, to regain control over the breakaway territories - the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics constituting parts of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine. The clashes have killed thousands.