DONETSK (Sputnik) — Nearly 500 people have been killed in shelling of the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk by Kiev forces since the beginning of the conflict in Donbass, local authorities said on Tuesday.
"To date, in the Kuibyshev district, 213 victims have been registered, 197 people were killed in the Kiev district and 67 civilians died in the Pertovsky district, " Ivan Prikhodko, the head of administration of the Donetsk Kuibyshev district, said during a parliamentary hearing.
Ukraine’s southeast has been severely affected by Kiev’s special military operation, launched in the southeastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions in April 2014. The operation was a response to local residents' refusal to recognize the new coup-installed government in the country.
In February 2015, Kiev forces and eastern Ukraine's militia signed a peace agreement in the Belarusian capital of Minsk. The deal stipulates a full ceasefire, weapons withdrawal from the line of contact in eastern Ukraine, as well as constitutional reforms that would give a special status to the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics.
Despite the agreement, the ceasefire regime is regularly violated, with both sides accusing each other of multiple breaches, undermining the terms of the accord.
