Attacks on the People’s Republics have been stepped up over the past month, civilians and children were hurt, residential buildings and infrastructure were being destroyed, DPR People’s Council MP Elena Shishkina made a statement in this regard.
The DPR Representative Office to the JCCC reported on May 19 that Ukrainian militants twenty-one times had engaged our Republic in the past 24 hours alone, having fired one hundred and forty-three rounds. And just recently, in the lead-up to another video meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group on the settlement of the conflict in Donbass, which took place on May 14, the AFU violated the ceasefire 13 times.
Kiev officials once again showed that they completely disregard the agreement reached on the non-use of heavy weapons. Ruthlessly launching artillery strikes on the Donetsk People’s Republic, Kiev is not going to answer for its actions.
It is telling that when discussing security-related issues, Ukrainian officials at the meeting of the Contact Group refused to sign additional indefinite ceasefire control and observance measures. The new Kiev representatives claimed that they allegedly had not received the drafts our party proposed on this matter, although Ukrainian party did receive them at the previous meeting, and the parties were actively discussing them. Thus, Ukraine does not want to solve the conflict in Donbass peacefully and drags out the negotiation process by all means.
Even the UN called on the Ukrainian military in Donbass to make the protection of civilians an absolute priority. As the UN mission registered 11 cases of deaths or wounding of civilians for the first six May days alone.
It has also been revealed that the U.S. transferred military and medical equipment worth over $25 million to Ukraine this week for using in the combat operation zone in Donbass. The American side continues to provide military assistance to Ukraine, and we all know how they use this assistance against our citizens.
With a helping hand from the U.S., Ukraine gets all the means to continue hostilities in Donbass. We still do not see any real steps from Kiev towards the peaceful resolution of the conflict, on the contrary, such a challenging situation at the delimitation line did not happen for the past few years until now. Zelensky is already waging an overt war against our citizens, although “the president of peace” made other promises during the election. This would have been avoided if Kiev had fulfilled its obligations under the Minsk Agreements. However, the Ukrainian authorities are withdrawing from a direct dialogue with Donbass on various pretexts in order to oust our representatives from the immediate negotiation process,” Elena Shishkina said.