VIENNA, February 17. /TASS/. The Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) registered almost 10,000 ceasefire violations in eastern Ukraine since the start of 2022, Russia’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the OSCE, Maxim Buyakevich, said on Thursday.

"Since the start of the year, SMM registered approximately 10,000 violations. Shelling attacks targeting Donbass cities and causing immense human suffering are becoming a sad, but routine occurrence," he told the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna.

According to the authorities of the self-proclaimed eastern Ukrainian republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, 12 populated areas on their territory were attacked with the use of various types of arms, including large-caliber weaponry, on Wednesday alone.

Additional measures ensuring the Donbass ceasefire have been in effect in Donbass since July 27, 2020. Under the agreement, the parties to the conflict are banned from using weapons and drones, deploying heavy weapons to populated localities and adding engineering equipment at their positions. Tensions in Donbass started to escalate on January 9, with the Ukrainian military conducting shelling attacks along the entire line of contact.