Yesterday Ukraine informed NATO of its intentions to achieve compliance with the ceasefire in the east of Ukraine starting from April 1, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavel Klimkin said after the meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission held on March 29. But it turned out that this statement was just an April Fool's joke.
Units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces violated ceasefire as territory of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) was shelled seven times after midnight, the republic’s command said on Saturday.
"Over the past 24 hours, the Ukrainian Armed Forces 86 times violated the ceasefire, including seven times after midnight on April 1," the command’s representative told the Donetsk news agency, TASS reports.
Under fire were 28 settlements in the republic. The Ukrainian side used heavy artillery of 152 and 122 mm, tank weapons, mortars, weapons of infantry fighting vehicles, grenade launchers and small arms.
On the same day, a team of workers got under shelling as they restored electricity lines at the Donetsk water purification plant, which remained in blackout from March 29, command of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) added.
"The teams, which were repairing the electricity lines at the water purification plant, bot under fire from the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which used mortars of 120mm," the Donetsk news agency quoted the source. "This fact was registered by representatives of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission and the Joint Coordination Center for Ceasefire Monitoring from the Russian side, who are at the plant now."
The personnel is being evacuated now.
"Once again, we see that the Ukrainian side is not ready to observe its promises to support ceasefire," the republic’s command said.
