MOSCOW, March 12. /TASS/. The pro-Kiev military over the past 24 hours almost 400 times opened fire on territory of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), a representative of the republic’s defense ministry told the Donetsk News Agency on Saturday.
"Over the past day, the Ukrainian military 384 times opened fire on territory of the republic, thus being responsible for 75 violations of the ceasefire regime," the source said.
The Ukrainian side used four times 152-mm artillery. Besides, the republic fixed eight shots from a tank, 89 - from 120-mm mortars and 118 from 82-mm mortars. The military also used different kinds of small arms.
Most intensive fire was registered in Zaitsevo, Shirokaya Balka, Zhabichevo, Spartak, Yasinovataya, Kominternovo, Sahanka, Mineralnoye, Zhdanovo, and the area of the Donetsk airport and the Volvo Center.
Earlier on Saturday, a source at the republic’s defense authorities said at night to March 12 the military shelled the road near the Yasinovataya checkpoint from 152-mm artillery, thus violating clearly the Minsk agreements.
Ukrainian military evacuate civilians in Donbass
The Ukrainian military began evacuation of Maryinka settlement in preparations for breaking through defense line of the DPR west of Donetsk, the republic’s defense ministry said.
"With the purpose of preparing an attack on positions of the DPR, the Ukrainian military have begun evacuation of civilians from Maryinka," the source said, adding thus the DPR was relocating reserves to the engagement line west of Donetsk.
A peace deal struck on February 12, 2015, in Minsk, Belarus, by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France envisaged a ceasefire between Ukrainian forces and people’s militias starting from February 15, followed by withdrawal of heavy weapons from the line of military engagement and prisoner release. The package of measures envisages the pullback of all heavy weapons by both parties to locations equidistant from the disengagement line in order to create a security zone at least 50 kilometers wide for artillery systems with a caliber of 100 mm or more, a zone of security 70 kilometers wide for multiple rocket launchers and a zone 140 kilometers wide for multiple rocket launchers Tornado-S, Uragan and Smerch and the tactical rocket systems Tochka-U. The final document says that the Ukrainian troops are to be pulled back away from the current line of engagement and the militias of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, from the engagement line set by the Minsk Memorandum of September 19, 2014.
Despite the agreements, the DPR is being shelled regularly from the banned weapons, and the republic’s reconnaissance fixes positions of the Ukrainian equipment close to the engagement line.