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Over 700 shells fired by Ukrainian troops at DPR territory since Saturday evening

"The situation continues to worsen as compared with the previous day," Eduard Basurin, spokesman for the DPR defense ministry, noted

MOSCOW, February 20. /TASS/. More than 700 shells have been fired by Ukrainian troops at the territory of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) since Saturday evening, Eduard Basurin, spokesman for the DPR defense ministry, said on Sunday.

"Around 700 shells have been fired at the republic’s territory, including 450 shells of the 122mm calibers and 120mm and 82mm mines," he said in an interview with the Rossiya-1 television channel.

"The situation continues to worsen as compared with the previous day," he noted.

The situation along the contact line in eastern Ukraine took a turn for the worse in the morning of February 17. The self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics report the most massive shelling by the Ukrainian military over the past months. There have been no reports of deaths, but one civilian woman was wounded and the shelling damaged some civilian facilities.

Amid the mounting threat of combat actions, the self-proclaimed republics on Friday announced the evacuation of civilians to Russia. On Saturday, the Donbass republics announced general mobilization.

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