Donetsk, Mar 2 – DAN. The situation in the Donetsk People’s Republic remains tense, Ukrainian forces violated the ceasefire more than 1,500 times over the past 24 hours, DPR Operations Command deputy commander Eduard Basurin said on Thursday.

“Ukrainian army shelled DPR territory 1,520 times over the past 24 hours, using heavy artillery 25 times, mortars 549 times (including 120mm mortars 211 times), infantry fighting vehicle cannons 24 times, and anti-aircraft guns, grenade launchers and small arms 1,002 times,” Basurin said.

Overall, 17 DPR settlements came under Ukrainian army fire, including Donetsk airport and Spartak village, Petrovskiy district and Staromikhailovka village in western Donetsk, Yasinovataya and its Krutaya Balka and Vasilyevka neighbourhoods, and Zaitsevo and Dolomitnoye villages outside Gorlovka.

In DPR south, Ukrainian army targeted Dokuchayevsk and Styla and Yasnoye villages, and Sakhanka, Leninskoye, Kominternovo, Bezymennoye, Naberezhnoye and Oktyabr villages in Novoazovskiy district. DPR intelligence spotted three BM-21 Grad multiple launch rocket systems in vicinity of Primorskoye village seven kilometres from the contact line.

Ukrainian army units fired 184 mortar and artillery rounds at the outskirts of Donetsk, Yasinovataya, Dokuchayevsk and DPR south overnight. A residential house in Donetsk’s western Petrovskiy district was damaged by shelling. On Thursday morning, Ukrainian army shelled southern Sakhanka and Kominternovo villages.* *jk