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Media report no violations of ceasefire overnight in Donbas

Administration representatives of Gorlovka and Makeyevka confirmed that "last night was calm"

MOSCOW, December 11. /TASS/. The night in the settlements of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) passed without shellings from Ukrainian forces, local administrations told Donetsk News Agency on Friday.

"The night passed without incidents, no violations [of ceasefire] were registered," Yasinovataya administration head Yury Yanenko said.

Administration representatives of Gorlovka and Makeyevka confirmed that "last night was calm."

No violations of ceasefire by Ukrainian forces were registered in the south of DPR, in particular, in the Telmanovsky and Novoazovsky districts.

"The population of the Novoazovsky district slept calmly last night. No explosions or shellings. Everything’s calm," deputy head of the Novoazovskaya administration Anatoly Yanovsky said.

At the meeting of the Contact Group in Minsk on August 26, the participants confirmed their plans to ensure ceasefire in Donbas from September 1. Over the last weeks DPR defense ministry registered the growing number of shellings near Gorlovka and in Donetsk’s northern and western outskirts. Deputy Chief Monitor of the Special Monitoring Mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Alexander Hug said that Donetsk’s outskirts and Gorlovka remain the "hot spots" on the contact line in Donbas.

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 envisage ceasefire, weaponry withdrawal, prisoner exchange, local election in Donbass, 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.