Kiev breached truce 5 times in single day in Lugansk: Pro-Russians
The Ukrainian army has violated the terms of the Minsk peace agreement in the eastern region of Lugansk five times over the past 24 hours, pro-Russia forces say.
Sources from pro-Russia forces operating in Ukraine’s east said Kiev’s forces breached the truce by shelling the Donetsky and Veselaya Gora villages using mortars and automatic grenade launchers, the local news agency Lugansk Information Center reported on Wednesday.
Ukraine’s warring sides reached the truce deal, dubbed Minsk II, at a summit in the Belarusian capital city of Minsk in February. The agreement introduced measures such as a ceasefire, the pullout of heavy weapons and constitutional reform in the country by the end of the year.
The shaky deal has, however, failed to end the deadly violence in the mainly Russian-speaking regions of eastern Ukraine, with both conflicting sides trading accusations of breaking the ceasefire.
In another development on Wednesday, Ukraine’s Security Council said in a statement that eight Ukrainian troops have been killed and 16 others injured in the country’s conflict-stricken east over the past 24 hours, adding that the figure is the highest one-day toll over the past five weeks in the region.
“Over the past day there was one of the most intense bombardments of Ukrainian territory since the signing of the Minsk agreement,” the statement read.
It also accused pro-Moscow forces of selling Ukrainian positions in the region with 152-millimeter cannons.
Lugansk and Donetsk have witnessed deadly clashes between the pro-Russians and the Ukrainian army since Kiev launched military operations in April last year to silence pro-Russians there.
According to latest figures released by the United Nations, the crisis in Ukraine has left 6,500 people dead 16,000 others wounded in the past year.
Earlier this month, the head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), Alexander Zakharchenko, and his counterpart in the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR), Igor Plotnitsky, called on the UN to set up an international tribunal for investigating crimes against humanity committed by the Kiev army in the country’s restive parts.
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