Donetsk, Jan 17 – DAN. Ukrainian army shelled DPR frontline areas 427 times over the past 24 hours, DPR Operations Command deputy commander Eduard Basurin said on Tuesday.
“The situation in the Donetsk People’s Republic remains tense. The enemy fired 143 120mm and 82 mm mortar rounds and 278 grenade launcher rounds at DPR territory, and also used infantry fighting vehicle cannons and small arms,” Basurin said.
Ukrainian forces heavily shelled Staromikhailovka, Luganskoye and Abakumovo villages and the airport area outside Donetsk and Zaitsevo and Zheleznaya Balka villages outside Gorlovka, he said.
In Kiev-controlled Maryinka (1 kilometer from the contact line), DPR intelligence revealed the location of three tanks and firing positions of four 82mm mortars.
Ten houses in Elenovka, Gorlovka and Donetsk’s Petrovskiy district and a gas pipe in Yasnoye village were damaged by Ukrainian shelling.
Meanwhile, Kiev forces again targeted DPR south, firing at Belaya Kamenka village in Telmanovskiy district. In Ukraine-occupied Lebedinskoye village (6 km from the contact line), DPR intelligence spotted two enemy howitzers and two tanks. A convoy of trucks with munitions has arrived at the location of 40th artillery brigade which shells DPR settlements.
Shelling of Yasinovataya and its Spartak, Vasilyevka and Vesyoloye villages was recorded in the past 24 hours, Basurin said.
A ceasefire was agreed by the Contact Group at its meeting in Minsk on December 21st, in effect from midnight December 24th Kiev time – 1 a.m. December 24th DPR time, but shelling by Ukrainian forces continues. *jk