Kiev forces shell northern suburb of Donetsk overnight

The Ukrainian forces opened fire from the positions of the Pesky and Opytnoye village using mortars with the caliber of 82 mm, infantry combat vehicles, grenade launchers and small arms.

MOSCOW, January 24. /TASS/. Kiev troops opened fire on the outskirts of Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine, overnight to Sunday, a source in law enforcement agencies of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic has said.

"At night the Ukrainian forces shelled the territory of the Donetsk airport, the Zhabunki village (to the north of Donetsk) and the Volvo Center," the source told the Donetsk news agency on Sunday.

The Ukrainian forces opened fire from the positions of the Pesky and Opytnoye village using mortars with the caliber of 82 mm, infantry combat vehicles, grenade launchers and small arms.

The Donetsk republic’s defense ministry has earlier reported about eight ceasefire violations by the Ukrainian forces and 307 shellings of the Donbass buffer zone.

Last week, the Contact Group on settling the crisis in Ukraine’s southeast backed the initiative of Russia’s envoy to the Minsk talks Boris Gryzlov on declaring ceasefire. This is the seventh attempt since autumn 2014 to fully observe the ceasefire in Donbass.

The "silence regime" was introduced from midnight on January 14. However, at the meeting of the Contact Group in the Belarusian capital on January 20 the sides said the security situation in Donbass has deteriorated.

The ceasefire is envisaged by the Minsk accords signed in February 2015, after negotiations in the so-called "Normandy format" in Minsk, bringing together Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko.

The Minsk accords also envisage weaponry withdrawal, prisoner exchange, local election in Donbass, constitutional reform in Ukraine and establishing working subgroups on security, political, economic and humanitarian issues.

The Ukrainian forces and militias of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk republics have repeatedly accused each other of violating ceasefire and other points of the Minsk agreements.

Source: ITAR-TASS 24-01-2016