MOSCOW, April 10. /TASS/. As many as 65 episodes of shelling of positions of militias of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) by Ukrainian troops were reported in March, Andrei Marochko, a spokesman for the LPR defense ministry, said on Sunday.
"In March, our positions along the entire line of engagement came under fire from Ukrainian troops 65 times. Ukrainian troops used heavy weapons prohibited by the Minsk agreements," LuganskInformCenter quoted him as saying.
The LPR defense ministry spokesman said that several people were killed and wounded over that period. Thus, an ambulance car came under tank fire on March 16. A nurse was badly wounded. Two LPR militias were killed in Pervomaisk when Ukrainian troops opened fire from multiple missile launch systems. "On March 28, Ukrainian border guards opened gunfire at two women in the settlement of Luganskaya," Marochko said.
He said the Ukrainian side is continuing to deploy heavy weapons and personnel along the line of engagement in violation of the Minsk accords.
The Package of Measures to fulfil the September 2014 Minsk agreements, known as Minsk-2, that was signed in Minsk on February 12, 2015 envisaged a ceasefire between Ukrainian government forces and people’s militias in the self-proclaimed republics in Donetsk and Lugansk starting from February 15, 2015 and subsequent withdrawal of heavy weapons from the line of engagement. The deal also laid out a roadmap for a lasting settlement in Ukraine, including local elections and constitutional reform to give more autonomy to the war-torn eastern regions.
On January 13, 2016, the Trilateral Contact Group meeting in the Belarusian capital city Minsk agreed on yet another, the seventh, ceasefire in Donbass from January 14. The sides however continue to accuse each other of ceasefire violation.