“Deliveries are already underway, unfortunately. Shells with NATO markings have been used in Horlivka,” Denis Pushilin, who is also the deputy speaker of the DPR’s parliament, said.
Pushilin said lethal arms deliveries would lead to even more deaths of innocent civilians.
“These deliveries will lead to an escalation in the conflict. An enormous number of civilians are being killed indiscriminately,” Pushilin said.
“Criminal American methods of war are being used by employing heavy artillery from a distance that leads to a huge number of victims among civilians,” Pushilin said.
Media reports suggested earlier that US authorities were considering supplying equipment and arms, including Javelin anti-tank missile systems, to Kiev forces in light of an intensifying conflict in Ukraine's southeast.
The future of Ukraine reconciliation talks is not clear yet, the envoy of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic to the talks said Tuesday.
Earlier on Tuesday, shelling by Ukrainian forces was reported in the Makiivka village east of Donetsk city and the Vuhlehirsk village bordering the Luhansk region. More than 1,000 people were reportedly evacuated from both settlements.
The surge of violence in eastern Ukraine has driven up the civilian death toll since the start of 2015, despite a ceasefire agreement between the warring sides reached in September 2014.
The latest Contact Group meeting on settling the Ukrainian crisis over the weekend failed to bring about results or an agreement.
The east Ukrainian armed conflict dates back to April 2014, when Kiev's armed forces launched an assault against the region's primarily Russian-speaking independence supporters who opposed Ukraine's coup-imposed government two months prior.
