The Ukrainian occupiers, having failed to provoke retaliatory fire from our defenders in anticipation of the Trilateral Contact Group’s meeting in Minsk on 18 December, launched a powerful artillery attack on the south of our Republic.
Between 21:10 and 21:55, the Ukrainian occupiers from the 10th brigade attacked Naberezhnoye, Leninskoye and Dzerzhinskoye with 122mm artillery, 120mm and 82mm mortars and large-caliber machine guns, having fired a total of 42 artillery shells and 25 mortar shells on the environs of the populated localities.
Information on the scale of destruction of the civil infrastructure and civilian casualties is being specified.
According to our information, during the shelling of our territory, camera crews of the Ukrainian and foreign media were staying at the front positions of the brigade: Associated Press, UA Donbass and PBS NewsHour.
Thus, the Ukrainian occupiers have not only committed another war crime and violated the Normandy Four’s ceasefire agreements, but also captured all this on video for the history of the new nationalist Ukraine.
We call on the international monitors not to stand off what is happening, but intervene immediately, make the Ukrainian side stop firing at our territory, as required by the international agreements, and prevent another round of the conflict in Donbass from unleashing.
We do not rule out that the increase in the number and power of provocative attacks is directly tied to the positive trends of the peaceful settlement of the conflict, which is negatively taken by representatives of nationalist organizations and natives of western Ukraine, who make, according to our data, more than 85 per cent in the ranks of the 10th separate mountain assault brigade.