DONETSK (Sputnik) — The Defense Ministry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) in eastern Ukraine said Monday it has proof that the Kiev-led forces are planning to conduct artillery shelling of the city of Mariupol and accuse the DPR military of carrying out the attack.
"In order to escalate the situation along the contact line and to launch a new offensive, the Ukrainian military leadership has ordered its troops to carry out an artillery strike on [Kiev-controlled] Mariupol so that they could later accuse the DPR military of civilian casualties and the derailment of of the Minsk agreements," a DPR military official told reporters, citing reliable intelligence data.
