16.08.2015 01:02, Donbass
This night and yesterday evening the Ukrainian militants have heavily shelled the cities, towns, townships and villages of Donetsk People’s Republic along all of the contact line.
All bordering districts of the capital, Donetsk, were shelled – Kievsky, Kuybyshevsky, Kirovsky and Petrovsky. The information regarding the victims of the shelling and destruction is being specified, more specific information, most probably, will be available in the morning. Currently at least two civilians in Kuybyshevsky district are known to be injured.
Spartak village of Yasinovataya region, near the Donetsk airport, was shelled once again late in the evening – by “Grad” multiple rocket launch systems, according to DPR Defense Ministry. Makeevka, the second biggest city of the Republic, bordering Donetsk from the east, was also shelled by “Grads”. It is currently relatively calm in Donetsk and its satellite city.
Gorlovka, another major city north-east of Donetsk which suffers most intensive shelling these days, came under fire yesterday evening once again. Gorlovka mayor’s office has informed Donetsk News Agency that the city was shelled, as usual, from the direction of Kiev’s militants’ positions in Artemovsk. The punitive forces have used heavy artillery. Donetsk News Agency is not able to contact Gorlovka authorities to specify the damage done by the shelling. Last night’s damage is known, though: one civilian dead, three injured. The night between August 14 and August 15, according to city administration’s head Roman Khramenkov, the city was shelled by 152 mm artillery guns, banned by the Minsk agreements.
Front-line villages on the Mariupol axis – Sakhanka, Kominternovo, Krasnoarmeyskoye, Primorskoye, Oktyabrskoye – came under fire. Local authorities have told Donetsk News Agency yesterday that many residents of these villages hurry to move to safer regions; the majority of the local residents, though, have left their houses a long time ago, saving their lives from the shells of the militants.
It is worth noting that DPR Deputy Defense Minister Eduard Basurin had organized an urgent briefing for the press and declared that, according to the data received by the military intelligence, the Ukrainian punitive forces in Donbass are placed in a state of high combat readiness. The Deputy Defense Minister had also repeated that the militants have recently changed the tactics of the shelling – most of the time the villages and cities of DPR come under fire after dark. The punitive forces are using heavy artillery more actively as well – which, according to the Minsk agreements, was supposed to be withdrawn away from the front-line to a safe distance a long time ago.
The Ministry of Defense links the “rescheduling” of the shelling to the night time with the working hours of OSCE monitors, who only register the violations of ceasefire during the day time. The tendency became clear after the incident in Donetsk on the night of August 9 to August 10, when unknown criminals have set four cars of the monitoring mission on fire. According to the main lead of the police, this was a provocation of saboteurs, having a goal of compromising the People’s Republic and force the monitors to leave Donbass.
Despite the hopes of Kiev, this attempt of getting rid of witnesses didn’t work: the international organization continues its work in People’s Republic; more so, DPR authorities have provided the monitors with extra security forces for protection. Now the punitive forces trying to ruin the peace process and resume full-scale fighting are left with hiding their actions in the night.
DPR always provides OSCE all information regarding the shelling by the Ukrainian side. However, the head of the Republic’s delegation for Minsk peace talks Denis Pushilin has told Donetsk News Agency that without drastic changes in the talks the decrease of tension on the front-line is hard to expect. This is why official Donetsk keeps addressing the western European guarantors of “Minsk-2” agreements with appeals to influence Kiev. The latest rounds of the talks have showed that the Ukrainian side is not willing to move from imitating the peace efforts to real steps towards a political settlement of the conflict, and that this will barely happen without external pressure.
So far the data of DPR military intelligence claims one thing: Ukraine not only makes no effort to diffuse the situation, but does all it can to escalate the conflict. New and new positions of heavy artillery are being discovered near the front-line every day, dozens of units of military hardware, hundreds and thousands of Ukrainian military personnel are being transferred to the front-line. Coupled with this night’s shelling, such actions leave no place for doubt: Kiev is trying to start a full-scale war once again.
Source: Donetsk News Agency
