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East Ukraine militia source claims Kiev forces shelled school near Gorlovka

Classes were underway at the time of the shelling, and 33 pupils and 29 staff were in the building

MOSCOW, November 13. /TASS/. Ukrainian forces have shelled a school in the Zaytsevo settlement to the north of Gorlovka last night, a source from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) defense ministry said on Friday.

"This is the first shelling over a long time that occurred during daytime, around 9:20am," Donetsk News Agency quoted Kazakova as saying. She stressed that classes were underway at the time of the shelling, and 33 pupils and 29 staff were in the building.

"We specifically established maximally safe timeframe for lessons but it did not save us this time as you can see," she noted. After the shelling started, pupils and teachers were evacuated from the school.

Representatives of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) defense ministry and observers from the Joint Center for Control and Coordination (JCCC) have arrived to the scene.

A source in the Defense Ministry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) told Donetsk News Agency that the northern and western outskirts and suburbs of Donetsk were subjected to heavy shelling by the Ukrainian Armed Forces that lasted several hours last night.

"The Ukrainian military opened fire last night at Staromikhailovka populated locality in the west of Donetsk, Spartak village to the north of the [regional] capital, and also the Volvo-Center area and the airport territory," the source said. "The shelling began at about 9 p.m. and ended at 1.30 a.m."

The source added that the Ukrainian army fired about 50 82-mm and 120-mm mines at the city’s suburbs.

According to an agreement reached during the peace talks in Minsk, Belarus, the ceasefire in the Donbas region came into force on September 1. However, a large number of violations by the Ukrainian military has been registered since then.

Mortars of caliber under 120 mm should be pulled back from the line of contact in Donbas in keeping with the September supplement to the Minsk Package of Measures. According to the schedule, the withdrawal should have been completed on November 12.