Violence in eastern Ukraine showed no signs of letting up Sunday
as Ukrainian authorities reported death and destruction in the city of Donetsk.
The National
Defense and Security Council of Ukraine said that separatists had concentrated
heavy weaponry in three points around Donetsk: in the village of Spartak, at
the now-destroyed Donetsk airport, and in the Kievskiy district of the city.
The Council said
the separatists used those places to launch heavy shelling "of both
Ukrainian positions and residential areas."
The Ukrainian
military said that one Ukrainian soldier had been killed and seven had been
wounded in the last 24 hours. The military said the separatist shelling had
destroyed at least four residential blocks.
The separatist group, the self-described Donetsk People's
Republic, said through its official information agency that 19 buildings had
been damaged, including a hospital. One man was killed, the agency, known as
DAN, reported.
Earlier
Saturday, another person died and three were injured in a massive fire in the
central part of the city, DAN reported.
On Sunday,
Eduard Basurin, a spokesman for the Donetsk People's Republic, said the
Republic had agreed to withdraw 100-millimeter weapons to locations 3
kilometers (1.8 miles) from the front line, DAN reported. Basurin was quoted as
saying the decision was made because of the "unswerving desire and the
will to establish peace in the Donbas."
The Donbas is an
industrial region in eastern Ukraine.
Fighting in
eastern Ukraine, which borders Russia, has raged off and on since protests
forced President Viktor Yanukovych from power in February 2014. Yanukovych was
tilting Ukraine's foreign policy toward Russia and away from the European
Union.
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