MOSCOW, July 14. /TASS/. Ukrainian troops started massive shelling of the village of Spartak in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), the regional administration told the Donetsk News Agency.
"Shelling is conducted from various types of weapons: mortars, machineguns, tanks, the roaring of shells is heard. A number of shells hit the village’s center, but there is no opportunity to learn about victims and destructions until the shelling is over," the report said.
Fire is delivered from the positions of Ukrainian servicemen in the village of Opytnoye, the regional administration said.
Today, the Ukrainian troops also shelled the city of Gorlovka and its suburbs. The Armed Forces of Ukraine delivered fire from heavy weapons on the city’s northwestern part. Powerful blasts were heard from the direction of the Nikitovsky District and Ozeryanovka. Two people were wounded in the shellings.
The DPR Defense Ministry said Ukraine intensified its fire of the DPR territory. In particular, DPR Defense Ministry spokesman Eduard Basurin said the Ukrainian side does such things deliberately prior to meetings in Minsk.
"This is done to show the public that the situation remains unstable," he said.
After a coup occurred in Ukraine in February 2014, mass protests soon erupted in Ukraine’s southeast, where local residents, mostly Russian speakers, did not recognize the coup-imposed authorities, formed militias and started fighting for their rights.
In response, Kiev in April 2014 announced the start of "an antiterrorism operation" in east Ukraine, which involved the Armed Forces, the Interior Ministry’s National Guard and volunteer battalions made up of Euromaidan activists, many of whom hold far-right and neo-Nazi views.
Ukrainian troops have been engaged in fierce fighting with local militias during Kiev’s punitive operation, underway since mid-April 2014, against the breakaway territories - the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics constituting parts of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine.
Massive shelling of residential neighborhoods, including with the use of aviation, has killed thousands and led to a humanitarian disaster in the area.
Kiev has regularly violated the ceasefire regime imposed as part of 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. In line with the document, cannon artillery with calibers of 100 millimeters and more was to be withdrawn from the disengagement line to a distance of 50 kilometers.