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Ukrainian forces shell Donetsk’s outskirts and checkpoint at Yasinovataya — DPR

DPR defense ministry said earlier that Ukrainian forces shelled the DPR territory 225 times over the last 24 hours

© AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda, Archive

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Russian OSCE envoy: Military activities in Ukraine add to risks for political settlement

MOSCOW, April 11. /TASS/. Ukrainian Armed Forces have shelled the checkpoint at Yasinovataya on the Donetsk-Gorlovka highway and outskirts of Donetsk, a source in law enforcement agencies of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) said on Monday.

"The enemy shelled at night the settlements of Spartak, Mineralnoye, Yakovlevka and the checkpoint at Yasinovataya from mortars of 82mm and 120mm caliber. Moreover, the settlement of Trudovskiye and the Volvo Center came under fire," Donetsk News Agency quoted the source as saying.

He noted that Ukrainian forces opened fire around 11pm and stopped after midnight. Kiev forces fired a total of 14 mines.

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DPR defense ministry said earlier that Ukrainian forces shelled the DPR territory 225 times over the last 24 hours.

At the meeting of the Contact Group at the start of January the sides supported the initiative of Russia’s envoy Boris Gryzlov on ensuring complete ceasefire on the territory of Donbass. This is the seventh attempt to fully observe the ceasefire regime in Ukraine’s south-east. At recent meetings of the Contact Group in Minsk the participants expressed regret over continuing violations of ceasefire regime 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 Pyotr Poroshenko. The package of measures also envisages weaponry withdrawal, prisoner exchange, local election in Donbass, constitutional reform in Ukraine and establishing working sub-groups on security, political, economy and humanitarian components of the Minsk accords.

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