Donetsk, Sep 10 - DAN. Ukraine again showed its inability to negotiate derailing the joint inspection with the Donetsk People’s Republic in Gorlovka outskirts on Thursday, DPR representative to the Contact Group talks, the Republic’s Foreign Minister Natalia Nikonorova said.
“We’re well aware of the true reason behind his destructive conduct: Ukrainian armed formations indeed violated the additional ceasefire control measures by constructing fortifications and installations in the Shumy settlement area, so the Ukrainian leadership is making all efforts to conceal it and prevent an objective monitoring of its positions,” Nikonorova said.
Describing Ukraine’s demands to the DPR representative as absurd (showing a negative coronavirus test result, Ukrainian or Russian passport and removing the abbreviation “DPR” from his IDs and insignia), she underlined that these demands were not voiced on Wednesday when the Contact Group was discussing the details.
“Nevertheless, we recommend the Ukrainian representatives not to hope that they can get away with this ploy, Kiev will have to bear responsibility for sabotaging the peace accords, including at the Normandy Four level,” the DPR diplomat said.
The DPR authorities planned an operation to eliminate Ukrainian army fortifications outside Gorlovka on September 9. Donetsk repeatedly said that the People’s Militia had to resort to such measures because Kiev refused to acknowledge its violations of additional ceasefire control measures. The Contact Group decided its extraordinary videoconference on September 9 to carry out a joint inspection with the view of remedying the violations. Following this decision, the order to destroy the fortifications was revoked.
The demands that Kiev remedy the violations were first issued in Donetsk on August 28. During the operation of additional ceasefire control measures, Ukrainian servicemen installed new fortifications advancing them towards the Seversky Donets-Donbass water duct arc, a key water supply line in the region, with the view of gaining a foothold there.
The package of tighter ceasefire control measures came into force in Donbass on July 27, 2020. The document bans the use of any weapons, deployment of hardware, special operations, engineer works and flights of unmanned aerial vehicles.*jk