Donetsk, Mar 23 - DAN. Donetsk, after a city resident was killed in Ukrainian sniper fire, will double its efforts in making Kiev return to the observation of tighter ceasefire control measures, Donetsk People’s Republic representative in the Contact Group, DPR Foreign Minister Natalia Nikonorova told the Donetsk News Agency.

On Monday, a resident of Alexandrovka in the western outskirts of Donetsk was killed by a Ukrainian sniper.

“Donbass has repeatedly seen that it makes no difference to Ukrainian armed formations who their targets are: soldiers, pensioners, women or children,” Nikonorova said.  “While Ukraine reports at international venues the successful observation of tighter ceasefire control measures, civilians continue to get killed.”

“Today, it happened again. We will double our efforts and use all methods available to us to continue to make Ukraine return to the accords it has signed, observe the package of measures to strengthen the ceasefire dated July 22, 2020, and approve the proposals on detailing the coordination mechanism, which were brought forward in line with the above Measures due to Ukraine’s position,” she said.

Nikonorova reminded that it is the first death of a civilian since the measures came into force on July 27, 2020.

“Furthermore, it is in Alexandrovka that the last victim of Ukrainian armed formations had been recorded before the accord came into force. On June 22, 2020, a man was killed as the settlement came under grenade launcher fire. Back then, the situation was similar to what happened yesterday: the unceasing fire by Ukrainian armed formation prevented the evacuation of the victim’s body for a long time,” the DPR foreign minister said.

On  July 22, 2020, the Contact Group finalised and signed a package of ceasefire control measures. They came into force five days later. The measures envision the search for and punishment of violators and ban the use of all weapons, deployment of hardware, special operations, engineer works and unmanned aerial vehicles flights. Under the accord, a coordination mechanism had to be designed and initiated to respond to ceasefire violations with the assistance of the Joint Centre for Control and Coordination (JCCC) in the current membership.*jk*pp