The Donbas militants are using the new holiday cease-fire (started Dec. 23, 2017) to equip new firing positions inside the civilian settlements in Donbas, as the Ukrainian side of the Joint Centre for Control and Coordination informed on Facebook.
“The Donbas militants are using the cease-fire introduced on Dec. 23 for the time of Christmas and New Year celebration for equipping and increasing the old ones and creating new firing positions. Building these fortifications and deploying military equipment and arms there is happening inside the civilian settlements and in the direct proximity to civilian houses of Ukrainians on the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine,” the statement says.
In particular, the OSCE SMM report from Jan. 3 noted that such violations happened in the Eastern part of Kalmiuske (Donetsk region), where equipment and a military object are okayed near a civilian dwelling. Moreover, the militants are digging trenches mere 300 meters away from Kalynovo-Borshchuvate (Luhansk region), and right around civilian blocks of Styla (Donetsk region).
