KIEV, February 25 /TASS/. The Ukrainian armed forces regained control over Shirokino, a populated locality on the line of contact separating the Ukrainian troops from the Donbass militias, a few days ago, the press center of Kiev’s security operation in eastern Ukraine said.
"Our units have taken this populated locality under their control. They are minesweeping the territory and liquidating explosive devices," the press center wrote on its official page in Facebook.
Until recently, the Shirokino village has been one of the worst trouble spots on the disengagement line in Donbass. On June 16, 2015, the authorities of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) evacuated all the people from Shirokino. They unilaterally proclaimed Shirokino to be a demilitarized zone on July 1, 2015. The militias left Shirokino the next day.
On July 4, 2015, the leaders of the Joint Control and Coordination Center and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) met in Shirokino to discuss the village’s final demilitarization. They suggested deploying a checkpoint of a monitoring group comprising representatives of Kiev, Russia and Donetsk in the JCCC and OSCE monitors in Shirokino. The Kiev government later refused to support this proposal.