Militants continue to wipe off entire neighborhoods, - JCCC

During the meeting of trilateral contact group in Minsk, Aug. 26, illegal armed units cynically sabotaged the negotiation process, dramatically increasing shelling of Ukrainian forces positions and peaceful settlements, including from banned heavy weaponry.

This is reported by Censor.NET citing the ATO press service.

"We are strongly indignant at demonstrative provocations by militants, persisting in conflict escalation along the demarcation line in eastern Ukraine. They stepped up attacks at not only Ukrainian forces positions, but also at peaceful settlements. And all this is happening in the face of the Minsk talks aimed at cease-fire and peacemaking," Ukraine's envoy at the Joint Coordination Center for Ceasefire Monitoring (JCCC), General-Major Borys Kremenetskyi said at a meeting with the OSCE ad hoc monitoring mission representatives.

The report reads: "The total number of attacks by illegal armed units as of Aug. 26 has increased by 10 percent and makes 90 cases of cease-fire violations. Of them 29 case involved heavy weaponry: 152-mm artillery - seven times, 122-mm - seven times, 120-mm mortars - 14 times, MLRS - once. Tanks were used five times. As a result of attacks, Ukrainian forces suffered considerable losses - seven dead and 13 wounded. During the past day, the JCCC contributed to almost 30 cases of cease-fire, of which only 11 were successful as militants overtly refused to stick to the Minsk agreements.

"Despite Ukraine's ongoing aspiration to reduce tensions and take the armed conflict to negotiation process, militants and their sponsors seem not to need this. Their main goal is to spread panic and chaos among the civilian population of Ukraine, discredit its armed forces and government.

"How else can one explain the non-stop attacks on Avdiivka, Krasnohorivka, Marinka and other settlements? Militants continue to cynically and methodically wipe off entire neighborhoods and destroy urban infrastructure. More cruelty is hard to imagine.

"Provocative shelling of residential areas, including on the terrorist-controlled territory, for further discredit of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is repeatedly recorded. On Aug. 25, militants shelled Horlivka from two directions, damaging two schools No. 14 and No. 6, just on the eve of Knowledge Day on Sept. 1. On the same day, militants fired 152-mm artillery at a residential area in the temporarily occupied Luhansk.

"These and other evidence of regular war crimes by terrorists, as well as militants' artillery positions used to shell territories they control, including MLRS coordinates have been recorded. Areas of concentration of armored vehicles and troops have been reported to the OSCE SMM for further verification and reporting to 57 OSCE member states."