Ukraine plans to evacuate some residents of occupied territory in the country’s east, according to the military, amid reports a ceasefire has been broken in the region.
Lieutenant-General Valery Zaluzhnogo, commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, made the announcement in a statement on social media Thursday.
He highlighted that the city of Donetsk, which was seized by Russia-backed rebels in 2014, could especially see evacuations.
Zaluzhnogo said that 47 ceasefire violations by Russian forces occupying the territory occurred on Thursday, which are “gross violations” of a peace agreement that he said should be investigated.
Ceasefire violations have been common throughout the eight-year conflict in the region.
Ukraine’s military claimed Thursday that Russian-backed rebels fired artillery rounds on a kindergarten facility in a village in the Luhansk region. It was hit by shelling but no casualties were reported.
A sharp rise of skirmishes on Thursday in the occupied east regions of Ukraine has raised concern that Moscow may use the situation in the region as a pretext for invading the country.
Russia currently has around 150,000 troops on Ukraine’s border. U.S. President Joe Biden warned Thursday that Russia could invade Ukraine within days and that there is “every indication” that Putin plans to attack.
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“(Russia) carried out targeted shelling of social infrastructure objects, two civilians were injured,” Zaluzhnogo said of the ceasefire violations.
Zaluzhnogo also accused Russia of using “misinformation and propaganda” to accuse Ukraine of “shooting civilians.”
Russia-backed separatists had accused Ukraine of opening fire on their territory four times in the past 24 hours.
However, Zaluzhnogo said that any action so far has been defensive in nature and Ukraine does not plan any offensive the area or the “shelling of civilians.”
“Any harm that may be caused to people or objects of infrastructure in temporarily occupied territories is provocation,” he said.
In April 2014, Russia-backed rebels seized government buildings in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine, and proclaimed a “people’s republic” there. They battled Ukrainian troops and volunteer battalions.
A peace agreement was achieved in February 2015 in Minsk, Belarus, that envisaged a ceasefire. It was signed by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany.
More than 14,000 people have since been killed in nearly eight years of fighting.
— with files from the Associated Press and Reuters
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