MOSCOW, August 24. /TASS/. Twenty-three civilians were killed in shellings by Ukrainian forces from August 15 to 21, and 32 more people were injured, the office of the human rights ombudsperson of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) said on Monday.
"On August 15-21, as a result of military actions, 23 people died, among them four women and 19 men. Thirty-two people were hospitalized with injuries of varying severity, among them 24 men and eight women," Donetsk News Agency quoted the office as saying.
The human rights ombudsperson stressed that among the places subjected to most massive shellings are the town of Gorlovka, settlements of the Telmanovsky district, as well as Donetsk’s Kuybyshevsky, Petrovsky and Kirovsky districts.
From August 10 to 16, 17 people were killed in shellings by Ukrainian forces, and 45 more were injured, DPR defense ministry spokesman Eduard Basurin said.
Earlier in August, DPR office of human rights ombudsperson said that almost 1,300 people have been killed in shellings by Ukraine forces in DPR since the beginning of 2015.
Minsk agreements on Ukraine
Ceasefire is envisaged by the Minsk agreements on the settlements of the situation 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 Minsk accords also envisage weaponry withdrawal, prisoner exchange, local elections in Donbas, constitutional reform in Ukraine and establishing working sub-groups on security, political, economy and humanitarian components of the Minsk accords.
The Ukrainian forces and the self-defense forces of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics have repeatedly accused each other of violating ceasefire and other points of the Minsk agreements.