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Kiev’s military open fire on Donetsk Republic - military authority

The Ukrainian side launched 239 mines of 120mm caliber and 200 mines of 82mm caliber. Besides, they used IFV equipment, grenade launchers and other arms

MOSCOW, June 4. /TASS/. Units of the Ukrainian military opened fire on districts neighboring the line of engagement in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), the republic’s military authority said on Saturday.

"Over the past 24 hours, the Ukrainian military 512 times opened fire on the republic’s territory," the Donetsk News Agency quoted the authority’s representative.

The Ukrainian side launched 239 mines of 120mm caliber and 200 mines of 82mm caliber. Besides, they used IFV equipment, grenade launchers and other arms.

Under fire were Dokuchayevsk, Yasinovataya, Gorlovka and their suburbs, including settlements Spartak, Zhabichevo, Zaitsevo and Yelenovka, as well as Sakhanka, Grigorovka, Novaya Maryevka in the southern DPR, and western and northern districts of Donetsk.

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.