DONETSK, February 10. /TASS/. A total of 5,675 ceasefire violations by Ukrainian troops were reported by the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) in the past week, Eduard Basurin, a spokesman for the DPR operations command, said on Friday.
"A total of 5,675 ceasefire violations were reported in the past week," the Donetsk News Agency quoted him as saying. "Artillery, tanks and mortars were used in 2,527 cases."
As a result of shelling, twelve building were damaged. Twenty eight DPR settlements came under shelling. Most intensive shelling was reported from Donetsk, Yasinovataya, Gorlovka and villages in the south of the DPR.
According to Basurin, DPR’s reconnaissance services observed deployment of heavy weapons by Ukrainian troops. "Two platoons of self-propelled artillery systems and a mortar platoon were observed near Gorlovka. A tank company, a mortar battery and two platoons of Grad multiple missile launcher systems were observed at the Donetsk section of the contact line. A platoon of self-propelled artillery systems and tanks was observed near Mariupol," he said.
The situation along the line of contact in Donbass has deteriorated dramatically over the past few days. There are casualties among the civilian population due to the incessant shelling by the Ukrainian armed forces, many dwelling houses and infrastructure facilities have been damaged.
On February 1, the Contact Group on the settlement in eastern Ukraine demanded at a meeting in Minsk an end to hostilities in Donbass and withdrawal of all weapons and equipment along the entire contact line to storage sites by February 5. However, according to the DPR command, Kiev has been pulling more weapons to the contact line instead of withdrawing them.
On February 8, the command of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) came up with a plan for normalizing the situation along the entire line of engagement in Donbass, coordinated with the OSCE. The plan envisages immediate and comprehensive ceasefire, the pullback of all weapons outlawed by the Minsk agreements, the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission’s unhampered access to the storage sites of military equipment and the creation of a demilitarized zone free from any armaments and troops within a radius of one kilometer from the Donetsk water filtering station and a ban on any offensive operations. The Ukrainian military command ignored the initiative. The OSCE SMM’s Deputy Chief Monitor Alexander Hug refused to mediate negotiations.