“We will move the front line so Donetsk can’t be shelled,” Zakharchenko told residents on the streets of the republic’s capital city.
Earlier on Thursday, a mortar struck a trolley bus stop in the city killing between 9 and 15 people, according to various sources, and left several more injured.
The DPR Ministry of Defense suggested that the attack could have been conducted by a Ukrainian sabotage group.
Since the beginning of 2015, clashes between Kiev forces and independence supporters of Donbas have intensified, with Ukrainian military reportedly shelling residential areas.
According to DPR authorities, last Sunday more than 30 civilians, including children, were killed in the city of Gorlovka in a series of airstrikes conducted by Kiev warplanes.
On Wednesday the UN Under Secretary General for Political Affairs referred to the current situation in Ukraine’s southeast as the “worst hostilities” since a ceasefire was agreed upon September 5, 2014, stressing that the number of civilian casualties is rising.
