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Ukrainian troops violate ceasefire eight times over 24 hours — DPR defense ministry

The town of Gorlovka, the village of Spartak and the area around Donetsk airport came under shelling opened with mortars, mechanized infantry vehicles and small arms

MOSCOW, December 17. /TASS/. Ukrainian military have violated the ceasefire eight times over the past 24 hours, the defence ministry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) said on Thursday.

"The enemy has violated the ceasefire eight times," the Donetsk news agency said citing the DPR defence spokesman.

The town of Gorlovka, the village of Spartak and the area around Donetsk airport came under shelling opened with mortars, mechanised infantry vehicles and small arms. In particular, over 20 mortars 82mm and 120mm calibre hit the republic over the past 24 hours, the DPR defence ministry said.

In early hours of Thursday, Ukraine’s armed forces opened fire on Donetsk’s northern districts, especially Spartak, on the area around the airport and on the Volvo-Center.

The Minsk agreements, approved in the Belarussian capital on February 12 by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France alongside the Contact Group resolving the Ukraine conflict, envisaged a ceasefire between Ukrainian forces and people’s militias starting from February 15. However, the DPR defense ministry says that the situation in the republic had deteriorated. The northern and western outskirts of Donetsk as well as its suburbs were targets of shelling increasing in the past months.

Along with this, the 13-point package of measures adopted in Minsk contains withdrawal of heavy weapons from the line disengaging the Kiev troops and militias of the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, as well as measures on long-term political settlement in Donbas.