Interfax: LPR reports on escalation near contact line

LUHANSK. Dec 9 (Interfax) – Ukraine’s government forces resumed daily shellings in the territory of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR), deputy chief of staff of the LPR people’s militia Igor Yashchenko said.

“The situation in the zone of responsibility of the LPR people’s militia, along the line of contact, became [even] more escalated over the past three days. Kyiv’s armed forces again started to shell the territory of the republic and [the] positions of the people’s militia, which is a gross violation of the ceasefire regime and the Minsk agreements,” Yashchenko said at a briefing on Wednesday.

The LPR people’s militia positions near Smile came under attack from an anti-aircraft system and an 82-mm mortar on Sunday, Yashchenko said. The Ukrainian forces shelled a dacha community near the Lenin Machine-building Plant, using automatic grenade launchers on the same day, he said.

Yashchenko reported that on Monday evening, the Ukrainian forces fired an automatic grenade launcher on the people’ militia checkpoint near the town of Maryinka.

The press-center of the Donbas military operation pursued by the Ukrainian authorities, in turn, reported that the Ukrainian corps recorded almost 40 episodes of firing from the side of the militiamen over a single night.