LUGANSK, February 18. /TASS/: The Armed Forces of Ukraine shelled the territory of the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) using grenade launchers and machine guns three times in an hour, the LPR mission to the Joint Center to Control and Coordination (JCCC) said on Friday.
"Three truce violations by the Ukrainian Armed Forces were recorded in the following areas: at 10:23 (coincides with the Moscow time) from the settlement of [Kiev-controlled] Novotoshkivske shot were fired against [LPR-controlled] Golubovskoe; at 10:14 [from] the settlement of Luganskoe shots were fired at Kalinovka; and at 11:05 [from] the settlement of Krimskoe at Sokolniki," the statement says.
According to the LPR mission, Kiev’s military fired 21 rounds of ammunition at the Lugansk People’s Republic in an hour.
The situation along the contact line in eastern Ukraine took a turn for the worse in the morning of February 17. The DPR and LPR reported some of the most intensive shelling by Kiev’s armed forces in recent months. There have been no reports of casualties but the shelling damaged some civilian facilities. The spike in tensions occurred as Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky was touring the Ukrainian military’s operation zone in Donbass. Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the Kremlin was keeping an eye on the situation and regards it as "very, very dangerous" due to provocations by Ukraine.
