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Developments in eastern Ukraine

Ukrainian troops resume shelling of Gorlovka in DPR

The city of Gorlovka is one of the hot spots along the line of contact in Donbass

MOSCOW, August 16. /TASS/. Ukrainian troops have resumed shelling of western suburbs of the city of Gorlovka in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) from tanks, a spokesman for the city administration said on Sunday.

"They are shelling us again. They are using tanks. Shells are coming from Dzerzhinsk," the Donetsk News Agency quoted him as saying.

The spokesman said the shelling might become heavier over the coming night. "Ukraine’s army always starts with tanks and then uses artillery," he said, adding that so far there were no reports about the casulaties.

The city of Gorlovka is one of the hot spots along the line of contact in Donbass. According to the city administration, as many as 164 civilians were killed and 501 were wounded in shelling since January 2015. The city comes under shelling virtually every night.

The DPR defence ministry said Ukraine’s army was shelling DPR territories in the nighttime since monitors of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) did not report ceasefire violations at night.

The Minsk accords were signed on February 12, 2015 after 14-hour negotiations between the leaders of so-called Normandy Four (Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko) in the Belarusian capital city of Minsk. Concurrently, Minsk hosted a meeting of the Contact Group on Ukrainian settlement.

A 13-point Package of Measures on implementation of the September 2014 Minsk agreements in particular included an agreement on cessation of fire from February 15, withdrawal of heavy armaments, as well as measures on long-term political settlement of the situation in Ukraine, including establishment of working subgroups as priority tasks.

Four subgroups, tasked with addressing security, political, economic and humanitarian issues, are expected to advance work by the Contact Group in activating elements of the Minsk deal. The Contact Group and its all subgroups are due to meet next time on August 26 in Minsk.

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Eastern Ukraine

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