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Ukrainian military launch more than 500 shells, mines on Donetsk Republic

Besides heavy weapons and mortars, the Ukrainian military used grenade launchers, weapons of infantry fighting vehicles and small arms

DONETSK, November 19. /TASS/. Units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces on Friday evening and during the night to Saturday launched 530 artillery shells and mines on the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), a source at the republic’s defense authorities told the Donetsk News Agency on Saturday.

"Between 18:00 and 03:00, the Ukrainian side launched 530 artillery shells of 122 and 152mm calibers and mines of 82 and 120mm calibers on settlements Trudovskiye and Alexandrovka west of Donetsk, Staromikhailovka west of Donetsk, Novolaspa, Shirokaya Balka, the Donetsk airport area, the industrial area near Yasinovataya, settlements Spartak, Sakhanka, Bezymennoye, Kominternovo and Leninskoye" the source told the agency.

Besides heavy weapons and mortars, the Ukrainian military used grenade launchers, weapons of infantry fighting vehicles and small arms.

On August 26, the parties to the Contact Group for settling the armed civil conflict in eastern Ukraine made a 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 on shelling DPR’s settlements. The DPR has been daily reporting more than 100 episodes of shelling with the use of weapons of 120mm and 122mm calibers.

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 to open retaliatory fire in response to provocations from Ukrainian troops. On the following day, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said after talks in Kiev that Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko had also guaranteed Ukraine’s readiness to observe truce in Donbass.

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.