THE Ukrainian coup regime shelled the capital of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) yesterday, injuring two miners on their way to work.

After the fighting broke out on Monday, a Russian presidential spokesman blamed Kiev’s far-right militias for trying to seize territory from anti-fascist DPR militia in breach of an ongoing ceasefire.

The two coalminers were walking to work in the north-eastern suburb of Makiivka yesterday morning when they were wounded by the bombardment, the Donetsk News Agency reported.

On Monday, more than 200 miners were trapped underground after army shelling cut off power to lifts.

Local residents reported hearing incessant artillery salvos throughout the night and in the morning, an intensity that the city has not seen in months.

An Associated Press reporter outside the regime-held town of Avdiivka saw a transporter carrying a Kiev regime Grad multiple missile launcher with empty rounds as it drove away from the front line.

The Grad is among the heavy weaponry that both warring parties committed to pull back when they signed a ceasefire deal in Minsk in 2015.

Kiev’s Defence Minister Igor Pavlovsky said: “Metre by metre, step by step, whenever possible, our boys have been advancing.” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov said: “Kiev is trying to use the fighting it provoked itself as a pretext to refuse to observe the Minsk agreement and blame Russia.”

The escalation “seems to be another reason for the soonest possible resumption of dialogue and co-operation between Russia and America,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov added.