LUGANSK, December 2. /TASS/. Units of the Ukrainian military over past 24 hours nine times opened fire on the militia’s positions in the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR), the republic’s defense authority said on Saturday.

"Under fire were Pervomaisk, Kalinovo, Logvinovo, Lozovoye, Nizhneye Lozovoye, Veselogorovka, Sokolniki and Kalinovo-Borshchevatoye," Luganskinformcenter quoted the authority. "The military have used 120 and 82mm mortars, weapons of infantry fighting vehicles, grenade launchers and small arms."

Since the fall of 2014, participants in the Contact Group on East Ukrainian settlement have announced about a dozen of ceasefire deals. On June 24, the so-called "harvest ceasefire" came into effect - it was expected to hold until the end of August. However, shelling incidents continued to happen.

On August 23, the Contact Group members declared a "back-to-school" ceasefire in Donbass starting from August 25. However, on that very day, defense authorities of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk Republics reported that their territories had come under shelling from positions of the Ukrainian troops. Kiev, in turn, has been accusing the republics of violating the ceasefire.