The plenipotentiary of Russia in the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) for the settlement of the conflict in Donbass, Boris Gryzlov, said that all responsibility for the aggravation of the situation in Donbass lies with the Ukrainian side. It is reported by RIA News.
According to the politician, official Kiev is trying to provoke Donbass to resume hostilities.
Following the meeting of the contact group, Gryzlov reported that the Ukrainian delegation refused to answer the question of the use of the Bayraktar unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in Donbass.
Then the representatives of Kiev still confirmed that the order to use the equipment prohibited by the Minsk agreements was given by the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny, the plenipotentiary stressed.
On October 26, it became known that the Armed Forces of Ukraine were using Bayraktar for the first time in hostilities. In the network there were footage of drone strikes.
Later, Ukrainian media reported that Ukrainian Defense Minister Andriy Taran denied the use of the drone. According to him, with the help of such videos, Moscow is trying to accuse Kiev of violating the Minsk agreements. “The video clearly shows that a pre-laid engineering charge has worked, and not the ammunition of the drone,” he allegedly said.
The use of the drone was confirmed by the General Staff of Ukraine. As noted in his Telegram-channel military journalist “Komsomolskaya Pravda” Alexander Kots, Taran gave a comment before the statement of the General Staff. “The minister is good there, who does not know what is going on in his troops,” the reporter summed up.
After negotiations with official Kiev, Gryzlov accused Ukraine of seeking to bring negotiations on humanitarian issues to a dead end.
He recalled that the representatives of Donetsk and Lugansk proposed to return to the negotiation process on humanitarian issues the head of the political council of the Opposition Platform – For Life (Opposition Platform – For Life) party, Viktor Medvedchuk.
The same conclusion was made by Gryzlov following the meeting of the contact group on September 15. According to the plenipotentiary, Ukraine “continues to hide its position on a political settlement from Donetsk and Lugansk.”
“Representatives of Kiev have once again refused to work with Donbass on humanitarian issues, instead trying to dictate the composition of the delegations of Donetsk and Luhansk,” Gryzlov said. “Thus, the dialogue on the release of the detainees and the opening of the checkpoint on the line of contact has been completely stopped.”
On October 26, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) Natalya Nikonorova said that units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine had made an attempt to seize the village of Staromaryevka, which is part of the Granitnensky village council.
On the same day, a representative of the DPR reported that the Armed Forces of Ukraine opened mortar fire on the outskirts of the village of Novaya Marievka, Telmanovsky District, in the south of the DPR.
On October 21, the Ukrainian Armed Forces fired at the western outskirts of Donetsk from heavy artillery of 122 and 152 mm caliber. An 11-year-old girl and an 18-year-old girl were injured as a result of the shelling.
According to the head of the DPR Foreign Ministry, such provocations from Kiev are unacceptable, and called on the parties to the conflict to return to a diplomatic settlement. Nikanorova did not elaborate on the situation in the village now.
The aggravation of the situation in Donbass began in early October after the arrest by Kiev of the representative of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) in the Joint Center for Control and Coordination of the Ceasefire Regime (JCCC) Andrey Kosyak. Luhansk demanded the release of the officer, but the Ukrainian side assured that the detainee was monitoring the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Since then, the dialogue between Kiev and LPR in the “Minsk format” has been suspended.
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