The wall of a residential building in the Donetsk region, damaged by shellingDONETSK, Feb 17 Ukrainian security forces fired 93 mines of various calibers across the territory of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic on Thursday, Ruslan Yakubov, head of the DPR office at the Joint Center for Control and Coordination of the Ceasefire, told reporters.
" as of 18:30 (Moscow time), 21 ceasefire violations have already been recorded, including ten with the use of 120-mm, 82-mm mortars and anti-tank systems", he said.
According to him, the last time such a high rate of ceasefire violations was recorded on April 16, 2021. As the authorities of the self-proclaimed republics previously reported, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are aggravating the situation in the conflict zone, which indicates attempts to resolve the confrontation by force. The number of shellings increased significantly, forcing the militia to return fire.December 9, 2019, 21:34InfographicMinsk AgreementsInfographicViewThe Minister of Defense of Ukraine Oleksiy Reznikov denied these statements and added that the country's authorities intend to act by diplomatic methods. In Donetsk and Luhansk, they emphasized that Kiev's actions contradict the Minsk agreements and measures to strengthen the ceasefire signed in the summer of 2020. The conflict in eastern Ukraine has been going on for almost eight years, during which time, according to the UN, more than 13,000 people have become victims, and about 44,000 more have been injured. The de-escalation of the situation is being discussed at a meeting of the contact group in the Belarusian capital, based on the Minsk agreements. The document provides for a constitutional reform, a ceasefire and the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the line of contact. At the same time, the Ukrainian authorities have now concentrated most of the army on the border with the self-proclaimed DPR and LPR and are regularly shelling the militias, including using prohibited equipment. >The West counts Russia's defeat due to non-appearance for warTension in the Donbass is escalated by the United States and other NATO countries that supply Ukraine with weapons and military instructors. Moscow has repeatedly urged to stop pumping weapons into the region, as this could provoke Kiev into military adventures. Western politicians and the media accuse Russia of preparing an «invasion» of Ukraine, but the Kremlin rejects these statements, claiming that they are used as a pretext for deploying troops and weapons at the Russian borders.