MOSCOW, April 9. /TASS/. Ukraine’s Armed Forces more than 20 times over the past week violated the ceasefire regime as they used the weapons outlined by the Minsk peace agreements to shell the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR), the militia’s representative said on Saturday.
"Over the week, the Ukrainian punishers from the 24, 28, 54 and 59th squads of the Ukrainian Armed Forces more than 20 times shelled our positions, thus violating the ceasefire regime, as they used the weapons, outlawed by the Minsk agreements," Major Andrei Marochko said.
Systematic shelling was aimed at Kalinovka and Kalinovo, where the military used mortars of 82 and 120mm calibers and IFV equipment. Most often, the Ukrainian military used the positions near Luganskoye.
The militia’s representative confirmed the Ukrainian military had been pulling military equipment and personnel to the line of engagement.
"The Ukrainian military continue violating terms of having military equipment along the line of engagement, outlined by the Minsk agreements, and they pull additional equipment and personnel to their positions," he said.
At a meeting of the Contact Group on settlement of the situation in Ukraine’s south east, on January 13, the parties agreed yet another ceasefire would begin on January 14, however the militia and the military continue accusing each other of truce violations.
A peace deal struck on February 12, 2015 in Minsk, Belarus, by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France envisaged a ceasefire between Ukrainian forces and people’s militias starting from February 15, followed by withdrawal of heavy weapons from the line of military engagement and prisoner release.
The package of measures envisages the pullback of all heavy weapons by both parties to locations equidistant from the disengagement line in order to create a security zone at least 50 kilometers wide for artillery systems with a caliber of 100 mm or more, a zone of security 70 kilometers wide for multiple rocket launchers and a zone 140 kilometers wide for multiple rocket launchers Tornado-S, Uragan and Smerch and the tactical rocket systems Tochka-U.
The final document says that the Ukrainian troops are to be pulled back away from the current line of engagement and the militias of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, from the engagement line set by the Minsk Memorandum of September 19, 2014.