DONETSK, February 26. /TASS/. Militants of the Ukrainian radical nationalistic units retreated from territory of the Donetsk water purification plant, which they captured a day earlier to correct fire on territories of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), the republic’s spokesman Eduard Basurin told the Donetsk News Agency on Sunday.

"Ukraine’s military authorities did manage to push out the radical nationalists from territory of the Donetsk water purification station, however, the enemy continued enforcing the dugouts near the plant," he said.

The Ukrainian side, he continued, has not given any security guarantees for repairing of the electric lines near the plant.

On Saturday, the Donetsk water purification plant stopped operating and its personnel was evacuated after shelling from positions of the Ukrainian military, the Donetsk News Agency said. On February 23, the plant also reported shelling from positions of the Ukrainian military.

The water purification plant is located between Avdeyevka and Yasinovataya. The plant supplies water to settlements on either side of the front line, including Donetsk, Yasinovataya, Vasilyevka and Spartak controlled by the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), and Avdeyevka, Krasnogorovka and Verkhnetoretskoye controlled by Kiev. In the course of the continuing armed conflict, the plant has been under shelling many times already.

In late January, the situation along the line of contact in Donbass deteriorated, the number of shelling attacks dramatically increased. The number of destroyed buildings has been growing, there have been reports of civilian deaths.

On February 1, members the Contact Group on settling the conflict in eastern Ukraine held a meeting in the Belarusian capital of Minsk, demanding that hostilities in Donbass be stopped, weapons and military hardware be withdrawn from the line of contact area by February 5. However, the Ukrainian military has not implemented the decisions of the Contact Group.

On February 15, the Contact Group made a decision that all weapons banned by the Minsk agreements should be withdrawn from the line of contact by February 20. Foreign ministers of the four member states of the Normandy Quartet (Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine) upheld this initiative at a meeting held on February 18. However, on February 21, Kiev disrupted the weapons withdrawal process.