DONETSK, November 9. /TASS/. Ukrainian troops have used 152mm howitzers, which are supposed to be withdrawn to a considerable distance from the contact line in Donbass, to shell Donetsk’s northern suburb, a spokesman for the mission of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) to the Joint Center for Control and Coordination (JCCC) said on Friday.

"At 4.30pm local time today, Ukrainian troops fired four 152mm howitzer shells from the settlement of Peski to the area of the Volvo Center in Donetsk. They also used firearms," the Donetsk News Agency quoted him as saying.

Apart from that, the villages of Spartak and Zhabichevo near Donetsk also came under mortar shelling by Ukrainian troops on Friday evening.

The so-called back-to-school ceasefire came into force in Donbass from midnight August 29. It was agreed by the Trilateral Contact Group on the settlement of the conflict in eastern Ukraine on August 22, ahead of a new academic year. The ceasefire was violated three hours after it came into effect as Ukrainian troops shelled Gorlovka’s suburbs.

Since the outbreak of the conflict in Donbass, the parties have agreed on more than 20 ceasefires. The longest one was reported in 2016 when the ceasefire was upheld for six weeks in a row. However, all the efforts to establish lasting ceasefire have been failing so far.