The fighters said on Sunday that tanks and armoured vehicles with weapons under 100mm would be pulled back 3km in Donetsk and Luhansk regions. “They say one thing and do the opposite”, the Ukrainian presidential administration’s spokesman for the military operation, Aleksander Motuzyanik, told RIA Novosti. Attacks had lessened since the peace agreement, but both sides are increasingly accusing one another of violations.
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Ukrainian military observers said they witnessed rebel missile systems “turned towards Donetsk, shelling residential areas of Donetsk, then turning and starting to fire in the direction of Ukrainian positions”, Ukrainian General Andriy Taran said in a televised briefing.
Russian Federation annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 before a separatist movement took over parts of eastern Ukraine, where the West accused Russian Federation of backing the rebels with arms and soldiers.
Intercepted rebel radio traffic also suggested plans to shell the city.
Meanwhile, according to rebel commanders, Kiev has intensified fire in the Donbass area and is pulling heavy weaponry to the front line.
“I have no explanation”.
“A few days earlier we had been in separatist-held territory and heard the fighters using similar heavy weapons”, he said. On Sundya, rebels said that at least one person was killed and several injured as Ukrainian forces shelled a hospital and several residential blocks in central Donetsk.
During peace talks in the Belarusian capital Minsk on February 11-12, the leaders of Germany, France, Russia, and Ukraine reached a deal, dubbed Minsk II, on the withdrawal of heavy weapons from Ukraine’s front lines, constitutional reform in the country by the end of the year, and a ceasefire, which officially went into effect on February 15.
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On Friday, the head of the OSCE Ivica Dacic described a worsening humanitarian crisis in the east and urged both sides to adhere to the Minsk agreement, which he said was the only chance to achieve peace.
