DONETSK, September 30 /TASS/. The Ukrainian army has violated a regime of silence in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) more than 860 times over the past week, Eduard Basurin, a representative of the DPR’s operational command, said on Friday.

"The enemy has violated the ceasefire regime 863 times over the past week. Heavy weapons such as artillery, tanks and mortar launchers were used in 378 of those shelling attacks," the Donetsk news agency quoted Basurin as saying.

According to Basurin, the Ukrainian army shelled 19 populated localities in the DPR.

The Contact Group for the settlement in eastern Ukraine stressed the need to establish infinite ceasefire as of September 1 this year at its meeting in Minsk on August 26 for the ninth time since the autumn of 2014. On September 13, the leaders of the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk (DPR and LPR) banned their units to return fire in response to Ukrainian army provocations.