Donetsk, Feb 21 - DAN. Peace activists in Ukraine are subject to repressions and physical violence by secret services and nationalists, Donetsk People’s Republic Head Denis Pushilin told reporters on Thursday.

“The existing sound political forces in Ukraine which are trying to promote the peaceful conflict settlement policy are subject to repressions by Ukrainian secret services and ultranationalists,” Pushilin said. “Poroshenko’s key objective is to keep peace activists in Ukraine from the election race and ignore the Minsk Agreements.”

Kiev’s western supervisors encourage the Poroshenko regime to continue provocations, ignore the Minsk agreements and aggravate the conflict while providing it with military and financial assistance, he added.

Earlier, Pushilin said that the increasing intensity of Ukrainian forces’ strikes at Donbass showed the Ukrainian leadership’s wish to distract the population from current problems in the runup to the March 31 election.*jk*pp