Donetsk, Oct 31 - DAN. Donetsk People’s Republic militiamen are ready to eliminate violations in the security zone in the Petrovskoye area, head of the DPR Office at the Joint Centre for Control and Coordination (JCCC) Ruslan Yakubov told the Donetsk News Agency on Thursday.
“DPR militia units confirmed the intention to begin to eliminate violations in the security area next to Petrovskoye back on November 7,” Yakubov said. “Kiev bears sole responsibility for the delay. The People’s Militia has been standing by for disengagement.”
To resume the process, Ukraine has to confirm its intention and implement all the events in the security zone approved by the Contact Group, he said.
The DPR and Ukraine were to have begun the elimination of violations in the Petrovskoye-Bogdanovka disengagement zone on October 9 - 11, 2019, in accordance with the schedule approved by the Contact Group on October 1. However, Ukraine failed the disengagement.
Under the Minsk Contact Group framework agreement, the Petrovskoye village is on the list of pilot Donbas areas of disengagement of forces and hardware. The conflicting parties withdrew their units back in October 2016. However, Ukrainian armed forces were later sighted in the area again. Donetsk has been demanding that Kiev restore the parity and pull back its troops from the disengagement area.
On October 29, Minsk hosted a Contact Group meeting which agreed a new date for eliminating violations in Petrovskoye.*jk