DONETSK, August 3. /TASS/. The Ukrainian armed forces have more than 870 times shelled populated localities and districts of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) over the past 24 hours, using, among others, weapons banned by the Minsk agreements, the DPR operational command reported on Wednesday.
"The situation in DPR remains tense. Over the past 24 hours, the Ukrainian forces have 872 times violated the ceasefire regime," the Donetsk News Agency quotes a representative of the DPR operational command.
- Nearly 900 houses in Donetsk’s west left without power after shellings
- DPR reports 12 killed, 46 wounded in shelling by Ukrainian troops over past month
- Ukrainian forces shell Lugansk republic 8 times over last 24 hours — LPR
- DPR: Ukrainian troops shell DPR settlements Spartak and Yasinovataya from heavy weapons
According to him, the Ukrainian armed forces fired 161 artillery shells of 152 mm and 122 mm caliber and 616 mortar shells of 120 mm and 82 mm caliber on the republic. The Ukrainian forces also used infantry fighting vehicle weapons, grenade launchers and small arms in the attacks.
The Zaitsevo village near Gorlovka, Yasinovataya and its environs - the Spartak, Veseloye and Mineralnoye villages, the Alexandrovka and Staromikhailovka settlements west of Donetsk, as well as Dokuchayevsk, the villages of Novaya Tavriya, Kominternovo and Sakhanka in the south of DPR came under fire.
Members of the Contact Group for the settlement of the situation in the east of Ukraine at a meeting in Minsk on April 29 agreed on a complete ceasefire in Donbass starting from midnight on April 30. It is an eighth ceasefire agreement since the autumn of 2014. The sides however continue accusing each other of ceasefire violations.
Kiev’s security forces in the people’s militia responsibility zone have been repeatedly violating the truce, opening fire from mortars and tank weapons, which had to be withdrawn in accordance with the Minsk agreements.
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 regime between Ukrainian government forces and people’s militias in the self-proclaimed republics in Donetsk and Lugansk (DPR and LPR) starting from February 15, 2015 and a 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 June 17, Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine Konstantin Yeliseev told a news conference in Kiev that advisors to the leaders of the Normandy Quartet agreed at the meeting in Minsk on June 15-16 to prepare a new summit in the Normandy format (Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany) on the Ukrainian conflict’s peaceful settlement.