The Ukrainian party to the JCCC published a statement on the Facebook official page of the so-called joint forces operation’s staff about violations at the disengagement area 3 Petrovskoye — Bogdanovka, as if they were intentionally simulated by our side, the DPR Representative Office to the JCCC and to the negotiation process reports.

“Reportedly, on January 26, an attack with the use of tracers was launched on DPR People’s Militia positions from the positions the AFU left earlier. Realizing that this fact could have been recorded by an OSCE SMM camera, the Ukrainian side came up with a tale like “armed members of the armed groups, who broke through their positions”.”

Being confused by their data, the Ukrainian party to the JCCC rashly publishes the information that the dismantling of the AFU fortifications that the command staff reported on in November 2019, has not yet been completed, which speaks of the failure to fulfill the implementation roadmap to eliminate violations at the areas previously disengaged.

The claim that our military allegedly went to the AFU positions and demonstratively opened fire with tracer bullets is not logical for a number of reasons.

First, any movement in the area is recorded round-the-clock by the OSCE SMM camera, therefore, this situation could make sense if the video from the Mission’s camera was published. Second, the indicated coordinates are located on high ground and in direct line of sight of the enemy armed formations, which at any moment could suppress the firing point, so only a kamikaze might dare do such a maneuver.

Note that JCCC observers have been reporting activity near and within the withdrawal area on the AFU side for about a week now. Not ruling out the option that the enemy is getting ready for another provocation in order to complicate the negotiation process of further withdrawal of forces and equipment, so for security reasons we were forced to temporarily limit the access of OSCE SMM patrols to the area. Taking advantage of the situation and naively believing that it would be possible to deceive the public once again, the AFU launched the attack intentionally to pass it off as a provocation from our units. The public statement by the Ukrainian party to the JCCC traditionally demonstrates the professional incompetence of those who come up with such “military tales” devoid of sound logic. You cannot call those statements anything else, since they have no basis in reality,” the DPR Representative Office to the JCCC and to the negotiation process stated.