The working subgroup for security held a meeting via videoconferencing on April 20, it began at 14:00 and lasted 4 hours. The agenda involved coordinating the wording of the Contact Group’s draft statement in the context of ensuring the effectiveness of the existing permanent ceasefire by means of additional measures for its enhancement and monitoring; coordinating the wording of the draft Supplement to the Framework Decision and agreeing on more areas for further disengagement.

According to the data from the DPR Representative Office to the JCCC and negotiation process, a civilian was killed, two civilians wounded, 47 houses and 8 infrastructure facilities were damaged by AFU firing in the period from April 6 to 20 between the meetings.

The Ukrainian side opened fire on the Republic 148 times, including with tanks, artillery and mortars:

In violation of Paragraph 7 of the Minsk Memorandum, a combat drone was used 1 time in Gorlovka, a 25-year-old girl was killed in the attack;

  • 122mm artillery used 9 times, 107 shells fired;
  • 120mm mortars used11 times, 94 shells fired;
  • 82mm mortars used 42 times, 321 shells fired on DPR territory.

The hotspot of tension were the suburbs of Gorlovka and the south of the Republic, as well as populated localities: Staromikhaylovka, Donetsk (the village of Trudovskaya Mine, the village of Oktyabrskaya Mine, the Volvo Center), Dokuchayevsk.

According to the OSCE SMM reports for the mentioned period, monitors spotted prohibited armament and equipment deployed by the AFU in violation of the disengagement lines in the security zone and outside the storage areas.

Official representative of the Republic Alexey Nikonorov stated not only intensive escalation along the entire line of contact, but also emphasized an increase in the number of attacks with heavy artillery.

“Over the past two weeks, attacks on the Republic’s territory with 122mm heavy artillery prohibited by the Minsk Agreements have been registered every day. On April 9, despite the prohibition to the parties to use combat aircraft, the armed formations of Ukraine attacked Shirokaya Balka with a combat UAV. A 25-year-old girl died and a man was seriously wounded in the attack. Unfortunately, the OSCE SMM did not register this accident and did not document it in their reports.

This state of affairs suggests once again that the Ukrainian side is not going to fulfill the agreements and observe the ceasefire in Donbass,” Nikonorov stated.

As for the discussion on new areas for further withdrawal of forces and weapons, Alexey Nikonorov called to focus on agreeing four areas.

“We proposed four areas: the DPR and the LPR two each. But the stance of the Ukrainian party indicates that they do not intend to agree on any of the proposed areas, since they proposed none, and this complicates not only the negotiation process in general, but also the coordination of new areas for the disengagement process,” the representative of the Republic noted.

Alexey Nikonorov stressed that at the meeting it again had not been possible to arrive at a consensus to address issues such as mutual approval of new disengagement areas and the draft wording of the Supplement to the Framework Decision.