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Kiev blames militias for violating ceasefire

The militias are disrupting the Minsk accords while the Ukrainian authorities are undertaking concrete steps for peaceful settlement of the crisis, Ukraine’s Ambassador to Belarus Mikhailo Yezhel says

© EPA/KONSTANTIN GRISHIN

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Kiev says militias should withdraw heavy weaponry first

MOSCOW, October 10. /TASS/. Ukraine’s Ambassador to Belarus Mikhailo Yezhel, who is representing his country at the session of the Heads of State Council of the Commonwealth of Independent States /CIS/, voiced Kiev’s stance on the situation in Donbass, the largely industrialized region in the country’s war-gripped east on Friday.

Kiev says that the militias are violating a ceasefire and disrupting the Minsk accords while the Ukrainian authorities are seeking a peaceful settlement of the crisis and are undertaking concrete steps in this direction.

Meanwhile, artillery fire opened by Ukrainian troops killed at least 20 people and wounded another 50 in the city of Donetsk.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said that on October 2 an office of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) came under shelling of the Uragan missile system that left Loran Etienne du Pasquier, an ICRC staff member and a Swiss national, dead.

Donetsk’s authorities said that on October 6 three residential districts were shelled (19 people were killed and 36 wounded) and on October 8 the Donetsk shopping centre came under shelling (9 people were wounded, including children).

“Ukraine is set to exert maximum efforts to stop the bloodshed in Ukraine immediately and to de-escalate the situation,” Yezhel said at the summit.

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