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News > Ukraine

Update: Ukraine denies shelling in Donbass

  • Representatives from Donetsk said Ukrainian forces shelled the town of Dokuchaevsk and the village of Zaitsevo on the outskirts of the town of Golfka with 120 mm mortars, which are banned under the Minsk agreements. Feb. 19, 2022.

    Representatives from Donetsk said Ukrainian forces shelled the town of Dokuchaevsk and the village of Zaitsevo on the outskirts of the town of Golfka with 120 mm mortars, which are banned under the Minsk agreements. Feb. 19, 2022. | Photo: Reuters

Published 19 February 2022
Opinion

Ukraine, at the heart of the conflict between Moscow and Washington, along with NATO, denies shelling the Donbass region.

The government in Kiev denies that it has attacked positions in the Donbas region, a Russian-majority territory, while the separatists launched an evacuation plan in the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in Ukraine.

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Ukrainian authorities and the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics have exchanged accusations of violating the Minsk agreements and breaching the ceasefire regime.

Meanwhile the United States (U.S.) accuses Russia of preparing an intervention in Ukraine, the Kremlin considers that the situation in the neighbouring country has become delicate in the face of shelling in Donetsk and Lugansk, which led to the mobilisation of thousands of people.

Representatives from Donetsk said Ukrainian forces shelled the town of Dokuchaevsk and the village of Zaitsevo on the outskirts of the town of Golfka with 120 mm mortars, which are banned under the Minsk agreements to resolve the conflict.

"We are very concerned by the reports of recent days - yesterday and the day before there was a sharp increase in shelling using weapons that are prohibited under the Minsk agreements," said the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, referring to peace accords aimed at ending the conflict.

"So far we are seeing the special monitoring mission is doing its best to smooth over all questions that point to the blame of Ukraine's armed forces," said Lavrov in a news conference.

Russia has said it is pulling some of its troops away from areas near its borders with Ukraine following military exercises, but the West insists that Moscow, on the contrary, is still building up its forces.

On Saturday, Ukranian autorities denied a possible military offensive against pro-Russian militias in the eastern Donbas, but separatist leaders announced a general mobilisation of all adult males.

Border guards in Russia's Rostov region detected two shells falling on Russian territory, according to a spokesman for the Federal Security Service (FSB) Border Department for the region.

One of the shells exploded two kilometres from the Russian-Ukrainian border, on the outskirts of the Mytyakinskaya stanitsa in the Tarasovsky district. Another shell destroyed a building on the territory of a private house in the hamlet of Manotski in the Tarasovsky district.

The Donetsk authorities claim to have detained a Ukrainian intelligence officer involved in the explosion of the local police chief's car.The dtained officer revealed plans by the Ukrainian Armed Forces to shell the capital of the rebel republic and the channels for smuggling weapons and explosives.

The Ukrainian President Volodomir Zelenski urged Western powers to defend their country without restraint against a possible invasion by Russia, which tested nuclear-capable missiles near the border with the former Soviet republic.

Speaking at a security forum in Munich, Germany, Zelenski urged a move away from Russia's "appeasement" strategy.

Meanwhile, the authorities in the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk announced early on Saturday a state of general mobilisation, requiring the activation of all reservists and the transformation of the economy in preparation for armed conflict.

These statements come after both territories declared on Friday the evacuation of their citizens to Russia's Rostov region.

Some 35,000 residents of Lugansk have already begun displacement there, according to the head of the Emergency Situations Ministry, Evgeny Katzavalov, while his counterpart in Donetsk, Alexei Kostrubizki, estimates that the region's authorities have already evacuated 6,603 people, including 2,436 children, to Russia.

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