DONETSK, January 8. /TASS/. Units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces over the past 24 hours almost 500 times opened fire on settlements of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), spokesman of the republic’s military authority Eduard Basurin said on Sunday.
"Ukraine’s criminal forces over the past 24 hours, 491 times violated the ceasefire regime," he said. "The enemy launched on the republic 69 artillery shells of 122 and 152mm calibers, 24 tank shells, 57 mines of 82 and 120mm calibers, as well as 281 shells from various types of grenade launchers."
"Besides, they used weapon of infantry fighting vehicles and small arms," the Donetsk News Agency quoted him.
The defense authority said, the Ukrainian military had relocated to the Novgorodskoye settlement three IFVs and one armored vehicle. Near Luganskoye, they have five mortars, and two howitzers and four mortars are west of Donetsk - near Nevelskoye.
On December 21, 2016, the Contact Group seeking to find a solution to the Donbass crisis agreed to introduce a ceasefire in Donbass starting from midnight December 24. The current attempt to "indefinitely" cease the fire in Donbass has become the tenth since the conflict erupted in south-eastern Ukraine.
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.