According to posts featured in V Kontakte and Russkaya Vesna, it appears, according to descriptions, that massive Russian preparatory artillery fire was used in advance of the attack.
Peski, along with Avdievka and Opytnoye long have been a prize for the separatists. Much of the artillery attacks experienced over the last eight years in Donetsk city have come from those three locales.
Offensives then begun just before the much more successful Debaltsevo defensive operation in 2015, failed owing to the fierce resistant offered. That resistance has been costly for the separatists.