DONETSK, November 9. /TASS/. Units of the Ukrainian military have opened fire at the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) along the contact line, DPR defense ministry's spokesman Eduard Basurin said on Wednesday.
"The situation in the republic has been aggravating. Over the past 24 hours, the Ukrainian military have violated the ceasefire regime 665 times," Basurin was quoted as saying by Donetsk News Agency.
The DPR command said that Ukraine had shelled DPR with 139 artillery shells of 152mm and 122mm caliber, with 392 mortar shells of 120mm and 82mm caliber, and with 26 tank shells. The DPR territory was hammered from grenade launchers, infantry combat vehicles and small arms as well. Western parts of the city of Donetsk, the outskirts of Gorlovka and Yasinovataya, the town of Dokuchaevsk and villages in the DPR's south came under shelling.
On August 26, the parties to the Contact Group for settling the armed civil conflict in eastern Ukraine made yet another, ninth, attempt to attain ceasefire. The agreement they reached suggests the ceasefire takes effect as of September 1. However, the Ukrainian side keeps shelling DPR settlements. Despite the ongoing provocations, the leaders of the self-proclaimed republics, the DPR and LPR (Lugansk People’s Republic), on September 13 banned their servicemen from opening retaliatory fire in response to provocations from Ukrainian troops.
The Package of Measures to fulfil the September 2014 Minsk agreements, known as Minsk-2, that was signed in Minsk on February 12, 2015, envisage 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.