Donetsk, Aug 6 - DAN. Ukraine is not honouring the accords on additional measures to strengthen the ceasefire currently in force in Donbass, while the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence has falsified the text of the document, Donetsk People’s Republic representative to the Contact Group talks, DPR Foreign Minister Natalia Nikonorova said on Thursday.

“Although the Contact Group participants coordinated and signed in Minsk the important additional measures to control the effective ceasefire regime, Ukraine is not fulfilling the accords in the manner and in the format they envision,” Nikonorova said. It is clearly proven by the fact that Ukrainian representatives, “either deliberately or due to incompetence, published an incomplete and garbled list of the coordinated measures on the website of the Ministry of Defence.”

Furthermore, Donetsk is bewildered by Kiev’s “rather careless approach towards the accord on creating a coordination mechanism to respond to ceasefire violations. Ukrainian representatives, for the reasons which we cannot understand, periodically do not answer phone calls or written messages which are part of the efforts towards launching direct communication between the parties to the conflict,” she said.

In this connection, the DPR calls upon Ukrainian authorities, in particular its new representatives in Minsk to "work substantially, conscientiously and in coordination with the Republic’s representatives on meeting all the obligations within the Minsk process without exception.”

***

The text of the additional ceasefire control measures the Contact Group coordinated at the June 22 talks which has been posted by the Ukrainian defence ministry is incomplete and has insertions that are not found in the original version.

For example, it lacks the provision stating that the additional ceasefire control measures cannot be fully or partially disavowed by any other orders, including classified orders. At the same time, the provision on the possibility to return fire has been reworded. The original version provides for this possibility only if fire is opened on orders by the command of the Ukrainian army or the People’s Militia after unsuccessful attempt to use the above coordination mechanism. The Ukrainian defence ministry said that “in case of ceasefire violation by the enemy and threat to the life of Ukrainian servicemen, Ukrainian armed forces have the right to respond to enemy strikes.” *jk