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Ukraine's nationalist battalion fighters accused of shelling DPR

MOSCOW, December 3./TASS/. A settlement in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic was shelled on Wednesday night from positions of the Ukrainian nationalist paramilitary battalion Aidar with grenade launches used, the head of the Telmanovo district, Alexander Sursyakov, said on Thursday.

Fragments hit the roof of a residential house in the settlement of Staromaryevka, the Donetsk News Agency quoted him as saying.

Sursyakov said the battalion of Ukrainian nationalists was stationed on the opposite bank of the Kalmius River. "Small arms could be heard sporadically" in the settlement, he said, noting that nobody had been injured in the shelling.

The Package of Measures, known as Minsk-2, envisaged a ceasefire between Ukrainian government forces and people’s militias in the self-proclaimed republics starting from February 15 and subsequent withdrawal of heavy weapons from the line of engagement. The deal also laid out a roadmap for a lasting settlement in Ukraine, including local elections and constitutional reform to give more autonomy to the war-torn eastern regions.

In line with an agreement reached in Minsk at a meeting of the Contact Group on settling the situation in east Ukraine, a complete ceasefire was established from September 1 at the disengagement line in Donbass. Still, the DPR regularly registers separate instances of shelling on the part of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.