Today, on June 23, the DPR Information Ministry hosted a briefing given by Mikhail Popov, the Press Officer of the DPR State Security Ministry, who spoke in detail on the agency’s employees’ having averted the provocation intended by the Security Service of Ukraine at the Aleksandrovka Checkpoint.
“On June 22, in the course of the planned engineering reconnaissance of the road section between the Maryinka Сheckpoint (Ukraine) and the Aleksandrovka Сheckpoint (the DPR), the Border Guard Service of the DPR MGB [the Ministry of State Security — ed.] discovered three MON-50 anti-personnel fragmentation mines planted by an enemy sabotage and reconnaissance group with a view to set up a provocation and thereafter accuse the Donetsk People’s Republic of reluctance to open the border.
The provocation staged by Ukraine was to be carried out through remotely-detonated mine explosions and resulting civilian casualties in the sector between the checkpoints. It was established that the enemy sabotage and reconnaissance group had infiltrated into the Aleksandrovka Checkpoint area before it was opened by the Ukrainian side and planted explosive devices in immediate proximity to the road. Hence, the Ukrainian side’s strategy for resuming the operation of the checkpoint unilaterally without having coordinated the issue neither with the DPR nor with any of the international organizations becomes apparent. Holding out hope for a symmetrically arranged border opening, the Kiev authorities sought to commit an egregious crime and blame it on the Republic,” Mikhail Popov said.