At least 10 people have been killed during fresh clashes in war-torn eastern Ukraine over the last 48-hours.
According to Donetsk city officials, four people were killed on Monday when a car repair shop was hit by an artillery shell and six civilians were killed in separate shelling incidents on Sunday.
The officials also said that 15 people were wounded by artillery shell shrapnel.
According to reports, the northern districts of Donetsk have been under artillery fire since Sunday which has severely damaged residential and administrative buildings.
The recent shelling marked the bloodiest day since a ceasefire agreement was reached between Kiev and the pro-Russians on September 5, after Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko hammered out a compromise deal aimed at ending the heavy fighting.
Also on Monday, pro-Russian Leader Alexander Zakharchenko accused Ukrainian forces of repeatedly breaking the ceasefire and suggested that it would not last for much longer.
“I do not see the sense in (further) consultations. There have to be measures which must first be undertaken and then consultations can take place,” he told reporters in Donetsk.
Elsewhere in the nearby Lugansk region, officials say the Ukrainian forces tried to break through a city held by the pro-Russians but they repelled the attack.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has said that neither side is honoring the Minsk ceasefire.
The developments come as a US-led military maneuver, dubbed “Rapid Trident 14,” started early on Monday near Ukraine’s border with Poland, involving 1,300 troops from over a dozen countries.
Ukraine’s mainly Russian-speaking regions in the east have witnessed deadly clashes between pro-Moscow forces and the Ukrainian army since Kiev launched military operations to silence pro-Russians in mid-April.
Violence intensified in May after the two flashpoint regions of Donetsk and Luhansk held local referendums in which their residents voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence from Ukraine.
