MOSCOW, July 6. /TASS/. As many as 67 people have been killed and 152 more have been wounded in shelling in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) since the signing of the Minsk accords in February, DPR Emergencies Minister Alexey Kostrubitsky said on Tuesday.
"Since February 11, as many as 67 people, including five children, have been killed, 152 have been wounded in the DPR," he said at a session of Russia’s Federation Council upper parliament house. He said a total of 685 dwelling houses had been ruined over that period.
Apart from that, DPR rescuers have found and destroyed 2,257 explosive shells, including those used in Grad, Uragan, Smerch and other multiple missile launcher systems.
More than 1,820 violations of the ceasefire regime by Ukrainian troops have been registered in the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic over the fourth months that have elapsed since the signing of the Minsk accords, acting first deputy chairman of the LPR Council of Ministers and recovery management center chief Alexander Drobot said.
"Over the past four months (since February 2015), Ukrainian troops have committed 1,820 violations of the ceasefire regime using prohibited types of weapons," he said, adding that some 140 buildings, including residential houses and infrastructure facilities, had been ruined.
A peace deal struck on February 12 in Minsk, Belarus, by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France envisaged a ceasefire between Ukrainian forces and people’s militias starting from February 15, followed by withdrawal of heavy weapons from the line of military engagement and prisoner release. The package of measures envisages the pullback of all heavy weapons by both parties to locations equidistant from the disengagement line in order to create a security zone at least 50 kilometers wide for artillery systems with a caliber of 100 mm or more, a zone of security 70 kilometers wide for multiple rocket launchers and a zone 140 kilometers wide for multiple rocket launchers Tornado-S, Uragan and Smerch and the tactical rocket systems Tochka-U. The document says that the Ukrainian troops are to be pulled back away from the current line of engagement and the militias of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, from the engagement line set by the Minsk Memorandum of September 19, 2014.