The working subgroup for security held a scheduled video meeting on May 26, the DPR Representative Office to the JCCC and negotiation process reports.
The agenda included the issues of ceasefire and additional measures for its monitoring, the issues of demining, as well as the implementation of the Framework Decision.
According to the DPR Office to the JCCC, two civilians were wounded by AFU fire between May 13 and 26, three houses were destroyed, 57 houses and 6 infrastructure facilities damaged. The Ukrainian side engaged the Republic about 130 times, including with artillery and mortars:
— 122mm artillery was used two times (20 shells fired);
— 120mm mortars were used 21 times (169 shells fired);
— 82mm mortars were used 43 times (288 shells fired).
Suburbs of Gorlovka and the southern Republic were hotspots of tension, as well as the following localities: Staromikhaylovka, Donetsk (the village of Trudovskaya Mine, the village of Oktyabrskaya Mine, the Volvo Center) and Dokuchayevsk.
According to OSCE SMM reports, the monitors spotted prohibited armament and equipment the AFU deployed in violation of the disengagement lines, in the security zone and outside the storage areas for the mentioned period.
Official representative of the Republic Alexey Nikonorov noted that the ceasefire violations and the consequences recorded indicate that the AFU were not observing the ceasefire.
“OSCE SMM monitors register an increase in the number of attacks. The data from the DPR Office to the JCCC also confirms that. The key issue that the Ukrainian negotiators have been sabotaging for several months is additional measures for stabilizing the ceasefire. The discussion of other issues on the agenda will be ineffective without taking meaningful measures,” Nikonorov claims.
Also, the Republic’s representative stressed that it is impossible to carry out demining due to the current rate of escalation.
“Demining refers not only to the clearing of minefields, but also to explosive hazards: shells in a large territory of the Republic, which the AFU engage every day and replenish it with new unexploded ordnance, and this endanger civilians even more. However, it will be possible to carry out effective demining only when the security situation is stable,” Alexey Nikonorov emphasized.
The envoy summarized in conclusion that despite all the efforts the republics and mediators to the talks—Russian representatives—made to agree on the additional measures for monitoring the current indefinite ceasefire, the Ukrainian party has once again evaded the process of their approval under far-fetched pretexts.
“In response to Ukraine demanding that the high alert regime be reconsidered, we stated that it would be possible only when Ukraine stopped firing on territories of the republics, conducted investigations into all the cases of deaths and injuries of civilians, provided the results to the OSCE SMM and approved with the republics the Contact Group’s statement in support of the current ceasefire, including specific additional measures of its enhancement and monitoring,” Nikonorov shared the DPR’s line.