On September 1, 2016, on the results of the Contact Group negotiations in Minsk, another ceasefire was declared in Donbass.
Kiev announced a regime of complete silence at midnight on August 31, and in the morning the press officer of the «Mariupol» sector reported four DPR attacks, with small arms, on the Ukrainian positions over the night.
At the same time, that night, the town of Yasinovataya, located between Donetsk and Gorlovka, was mortar shelled by the Ukrainian side. As a result of the attack, a local resident was killed, several homes destroyed, and a boiler damaged.
The next night, a clash broke out again in the industrial zone of Avdeevka, in the Yasinovataya area. Moreover, the DPR soldiers on these positions told reporters that, compared with previous days, it was ‘almost a day off’. Usually, this section of the front is constantly under attack by the Ukrainian artillery.
In the LPR, at the night from August 31 to September 1, the Ukrainian side also opened mortar fire on one of the localities, where is situated a pumping station supplying with water a significant part of Lugansk. Local residents believe that the Ukrainian army conducted targeted fire in order to destroy the station before the «regime of permanent ceasefire» entering into force on 1 September. In the shelling, there were also damaged two private houses.
In fact, Kiev sought to inflict maximum damage to residential areas and the infrastructure of Donbass during all the last days before another ceasefire, using heavy weapons along the entire frontline.
In Gorlovka, in the north of the DPR, a private house was completely destroyed by the direct hit of a shell.
The locality of Zaytsevo, on the northern outskirts of Gorlovka, where fights had not stopped for a single day for two years, was shelled by the Ukrainian military with phosphorus shells.
In the south of the DPR, just in one night, over 40 Ukrainian shells landed in the locality of Elenovka. The shelling damaged about 10 apartment buildings, in one of which a shell flew straight into an apartment window. In this village, in the spring of 2016, the Ukrainian military intentionally shelled civilian cars waiting at the checkpoint, killing 5 civilians, including a pregnant woman.
Kiev had not stopped shelling front-line suburbs of Donetsk city either. In one of the districts, as a result of the direct hit by a shell, a house caught fire, with a 77-year-old woman inside. Her neighbors managed to get her out of the fire, with her legs broken.
In another district, inhabitants of the house, in the yard of which another Ukrainian shell had landed, said that they had survived by miracle as the scattering shrapnel was stopped by their car in the courtyard.
Before the announcement of the ceasefire Kiev also systematically destroyed the infrastructure of Donbass. Over the past three days, only in Donetsk, there were damaged several sections of a pipeline, several power lines, and a water hub was destroyed in one of the districts, as well as a boiler was severely damaged in another.
In total, over the last three days of August, the Ukrainian artillery damaged 86 houses in the DPR, with some of them completely destroyed as a result of either the direct hit of shells or a fire caused by them.
Massive bombardments also resulted in casualties. The DPR army lost two men wounded, while among civilians one person was killed and nine wounded.
Return fire by the DPR army was limited by the fact that the Ukrainian military place their weapons in residential areas of Kiev-controlled localities. Due to this fact, the military of the Republics have recent focused their efforts on the destruction of Ukrainian weapons and technology.
Last week, in such a way, there were destroyed five warehouses with ammunition of the Ukrainian army in the north of the DPR and in the Donetsk area. Earlier this week, the military authorities of the Republic reported the destruction of a Ukrainian train with armored vehicles in the Yasinovataya area, up to 10 armored personnel carriers, as well as several infantry fighting vehicles and motorized artillery systems to the west of Donetsk.
As a result of deliberate and targeted attacks by the Ukrainian side on localities and the infrastructure of the Republic, setting stretch mines and explosive devices in residential areas, opening sniper fire on their residents, the DPR and LPR authorities were forced to make a statement three days ago, saying that Kiev had turned to the open terrorist war against the people of Donbass.
At the end of the last week, in Donetsk exploded two explosive devices: one near a school, the other near a military commissariat.
In the first night of the declared ceasefire, a car was blown up in the main street of the DPR capital, near a shopping center.
The DPR intelligence received information about the arrival in Donetsk of a terrorist group consisting of three women who had been trained in units of the Special Operations Forces of Ukraine.
In the night of September 1, another attack occurred in Lugansk: there was blown up a monument to the killed militiamen, located in the city center.
The day before, in the LPR, there was discovered another cache of Ukrainian subversive groups, where the General Prosecutor's Office staff found over 13,000 units of weapons and ammunition, as well as 15 kg of explosives.
At the same time, even after the agreements on a complete ceasefire reached in Minsk, Kiev still continued delivering equipment and the heavy weapons in Donbass. Over the past four days, including the first day of the ceasefire, according to the DPR intelligence, the Ukrainian side brought to the front line about 20 tanks, 14 infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers, 15 122mm and 7 152mm motorized artillery systems, 3 122mm howitzer D-30, 8 120mm mortars, as well as around 10 trucks with ammunition.
In addition, also according to the DPR intelligence, some command structures of the «ATO» forces are transferred closer to the frontline. There is also delivered office equipment and necessary documentation, by special transport accompanied by guards. Had been transferred to For the command and staff structures transferred to the area, there are prepared command posts.
Earlier this week, the commander of the United States Army in Europe, General Ben Hodges visited the area of combat operations near Mariupol.
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