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Ukraine FM denies use of military hardware in special operation in eastern regions

KIEV, May 02. /ITAR-TASS/. Ukraine’s law enforcement agencies do not use military hardware against civil population in the special operation in the Ukrainian southeastern regions, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said on Friday, adding that Moscow had been officially informed about that.

“Information about alleged participation in the operation by the Right Sector activists, as well as representatives from any other civil organizations, is not true either,” the ministry said.

According to the ministry, the operation is being conducted only by the Ukrainian Security Service, the Defence and Interior Ministries and the National Guards in the general command regime. The ministry also denied participation in the operation by mercenaries, including “English-speaking foreigners.”

“The use of the army against own people is a crime that leads Ukraine to a catastrophe,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Friday.

“Russia is indignant with the start of a punitive army operation in the [east Ukraine’s] town of Slavyansk involving terrorists from Right Sector and other far-right organizations,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said. “Ukrainian army units use tanks, other heavy military hardware, helicopter gunships which are delivering missile strikes on protesters. Information about casualties and wounded people is coming.”

“If someone had some doubts, this became absolutely obvious now that numerous statements of the so-called Ukrainian government on their intention to start a national dialogue to find ways out of the deepest crisis in the country are nothing but hypocrisy,” the ministry stressed. “The current Kiev regime which already broken the February 21 agreement has violated blatantly its commitments taken in the Geneva statement on April 17 which demands an end to any violence as the most urgent step.