Donetsk Bus Stop Hit by Shells Fired From City's Northwest, OSCE Reports

Two shells that hit a trolleybus stop in Donetsk, killing at least nine people, had been fired from the north-west of the city, the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine said Thursday.

MOSCOW, January 23 (Sputnik) — The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM) said the two shells that hit a trolleybus stop in Donetsk, killing at least nine people, had been fired from the north-west of the city by a mortar or an artillery piece.

"At 11:00 hrs the SMM conducted a crater analysis on both craters, and determined that the rounds that caused the two craters had been fired from a north-western direction," the SMM said Thursday in a spot report.

"The SMM also determined that the weapon(s) used was most likely either a mortar or an artillery piece," the report said.

Earlier on Thursday, two shells struck a trolleybus stop in the eastern Ukrainian city killing between nine and 15 people, according to various sources, and left several more injured.

The Defense Ministry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic suggested that the attack could have been conducted by a Ukrainian sabotage group, while the Kiev authorities accused the DPR militia of carrying out the deadly attack.

The OSCE SMM has called for ceasefire in Donbas in the wake of the shelling.

Since the beginning of this year, the confrontations between the two warring sides intensified, with Kiev-led forces reportedly shelling the residential areas.

The current situation in south-eastern Ukraine has been referred to as "worst hostilities" since September's ceasefire agreement by the UN Under Secretary General for Political Affairs earlier this week.