The Ukrainian presidential secretariat denies reports claiming that Ukrainian government forces have shelled the positions of militants in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR).

"This has all been made up. Our servicemen performing their missions in the ATO [antiterrorist operation] zone are abiding by the Minsk agreements and are not firing upon the enemy. Naturally, there have been no offensives," Ukrainian presidential spokesman for the ATO in Donbas Oleksandr Motuzianyk said at a news briefing in Kyiv on Thursday.

"Such statements have been made to discredit the Ukrainian side and accuse it of disrupting the Minsk agreements," he said.