The statement also said: “The Secretary-General is alarmed by the severe escalation of fighting for control of Donetsk airport in eastern Ukraine, which has already caused numerous casualties and threatened to completely unravel a hard-won September 2014 cease-fire.”
“He implores all sides to make good on their commitments under the Minsk Protocol and Memorandum, with the first step being an immediate and full cessation of hostilities,” the statement said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin urged militants to immediately stop shelling each other’s positions and to pull out heavy weapons from the both sides of the conflict line.
According to the data provided by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) in late December, over 4,700 people were killed and 10,300 wounded since mid-April last year as a result of armed clashes in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions during Kiev’s military operation to regain control over the breakaway territories.
A ceasefire was agreed upon at talks between the parties to the Ukrainian conflict mediated by the OSCE on September 5 in Belarusian capital Minsk two days after Russian President Putin proposed his plan to settle the situation in the east of Ukraine.
Numerous violations of the ceasefire, which took effect the same day, have been reported since.
A memorandum was adopted on September 19 in Minsk by the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine comprising representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE. The document outlined the parameters for the implementation of commitments on the ceasefire in Ukraine laid down in the Minsk Protocol of September 5.
The nine-point memorandum in particular envisioned a ban on the use of all armaments and withdrawal of weapons with the calibers of over 100 millimeters to a distance of 15 kilometers from the contact line from each side. The OSCE was tasked with controlling the implementation of memorandum provisions.
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