DONETSK, September 1. /TASS/. Members of the OSCE monitoring mission and representatives of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic at the Joint Ceasefire Control and Coordination Center have come under shelling carried out by the Ukrainian forces in the republic’s south, Head of the DPR’s mission to the JCCC Ruslan Yakubov said.
"Today at 12.15 a task force of the DPR’s mission in the JCCC and observers of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission, who came at the site to register the aftermath of yesterday’s shelling in the Kominternovo village, came under the Ukrainian forces’ shelling carried out from grenade launchers and small arms," Yakubov said.
According to Yakubov, the fire was opened deliberately, despite the ceasefire backed by the sides and also security guarantees provided by the Ukrainian side in the JCCC. The Ukrainian forces continue shelling the village from 120mm mortars, grenade launchers and small arms.
The mission’s monitors and the task force had to stop their effort and leave the site.
At the July 17 meeting in Minsk, members of the Contact Group seeking peace in east Ukraine declared a comprehensive, unconditional, lasting and indefinite ceasefire in Donbass starting from July 21. The truce for the first time included the parties’ commitment to take additional steps to ensure the ceasefire, which is what the Donbass republics had called for before. The ceasefire was broken by Ukrainian troops on the same day when they opened gunfire at the village of Novaya Tavriya in the DPR’s south.