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Kiev forces shell Donetsk airport

Ukrainian forces opened fire from mortars of 82mm caliber, and six mines have been fired as of now, the source says

MOSCOW, January 15. /TASS/. Ukrainian forces have shelled the Donetsk airport from mortars in the morning, a source in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) security agencies said on Friday.

"Ukrainian forces from nationalist battalions have resumed shelling the airport," the source told Donetsk News Agency.

Ukrainian forces opened fire from mortars of 82mm caliber, and "six mines have been fired as of now," the source noted.

In the evening on January 14, Kiev forces shelled the Volvo Center located near the Donetsk airport.

On Wednesday the Contact Group on settling the situation in south-east Ukraine agreed that it is necessary to observe the ceasefire regime in Donbass. "We fully support the proposal (of Russian envoy to the Contact Group) to make a new attempt to ensure full ceasefire observance on the occasion of the Old New Year," the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) envoy Martin Sajdik said. This is the seventh attempt since autumn 2014 to fully observe the ceasefire in Donbass.

Ceasefire is envisaged by the Minsk accords signed on 12 February 2015, 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 election 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.