MOSCOW, April 17. /TASS/. The Ukrainian military over past 24 hours more than 360 times opened fire on territory of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), the republic’s defense ministry told the Donetsk News Agency on Sunday.
The ministry reported the Ukrainian side had launched 267 mines from 82 and 120mm caliber mortars, used IFV equipment, grenade launchers and other arms.
Most intensive shelling was in Gorlovka, Zaitsevo, Ozeryanovka, Panteleimonovka, Dokuchayevsk, Yasnoye, Veseloye, Spartak, Zhabichevo, Yasinovataya, Sakhanka, Kominternovo. Under the fire were also the Petrov district in Donetsk, the Volvo Center and the airport.
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.