Donetsk registers growing shelling from positions of Kiev’s fighters

Kiev’s fighters over the past 24 hours violated 44 times the ceasefire regime, the defence ministry of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) said on Saturday.
“The shelling has become more intense and reached 44 times last night,” the Donetsk News Agency quoted the ministry’s report. “The Ukrainian military continue using heavy weapons.”
Under the shelling were two districts and the airport in Donetsk, and Yasinovataya and Gorlovka, as well as Spartak, Zheleznaya Balka, Krasny Partizan, Belaya Kamenka, Novaya Laspa and Shirokaya Balka settlements.
The militia of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) reported earlier on Saturday five violations of ceasefire.

The ceasefire regime in Donbass was announced officially on February 15.
Regular talks of the participants in the Trilateral Contact Group on the east Ukrainian settlement comprising representatives of Russia, Ukraine and the Organisation for Security and Co-Operation in Europe (OSCE) were held in the Belarusian capital city of Minsk on February 10-12. Talks of the Normandy Four (Russia, Germany, France, and Ukraine) leaders on the Ukrainian issue also ended February 12 in Minsk.
A 13-point Package of Measures on implementation of the September 2014 Minsk agreements was adopted at the February talks.

The package in particular included an agreement on cessation of fire from February 15, withdrawal of heavy armaments, as well as measures on long-term political settlement of the situation in Ukraine, including enforcement of a special self-rule status for certain districts of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions. The ceasefire has been repeatedly violated since.

On Friday, the Normandy Four (Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine) leaders discussed on the phone on Friday the development of the situation in the southeast of Ukraine within the context of implementation of the Minsk agreements of February 12, 2015. “Particular attention was paid to issues of holding a constitutional reform in Ukraine and organizing local elections in Donbass, as well as social and economic restoration of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, an actual blockade of these regions being a major obstacle to this, as the Russian president noted,” the Kremlin said.