MOSCOW, February 8. /TASS/. Ukraine’s authorities have been sending more subversive groups to the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR). The raiders are wearing uniforms of the militia or of the Russian military, representative of DPR’s Defence Ministry Eduard Basurin said on Sunday.
"Ukraine’s Security Service is using the tactics to discredit in the international arena not only DPR and LPR armed forces, but also the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, which they claim to be participating in the military actions in Donbass," the Donetsk information agency reported. "At night on February 1, to Donetsk came a subversive group of twelve people wearing the Russian military uniform."
The group, where commander was officer of the Security Service Alexander Sulika, was eliminated, the representative said.
Ukraine has been sending more raiders to the self-proclaimed republics due to the failures of the military operation and big losses. "These groups have tasks not only to correct the firing, but also to frighten locals and to discredit DPR and LPR armed forces," he said.
Combat actions between the Ukrainian military and militias of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics during Kiev’s military operation in the country’s east conducted since mid-April 2014 have claimed over 5,300 lives and displaced nearly a million people to flee their homes seeking refuge in neighbouring countries, according to UN data.
Mediatory efforts of Russia and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe /OSCE/ yielded results in September when talks between the parties to the Ukrainian conflict were held in Belarusian capital Minsk two days after Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed his plan to settle the situation in the east of Ukraine.
Two weeks later, on September 20 the Contact Group adopted a memorandum on implementing a ceasefire. The nine-item document includes a ban on all weapons, pulling back heavy weapons from the line of engagement and setting up a buffer zone of 15 kilometres. It also entrusts the OSCE with a task of controlling implementation of the agreements.
On December 9 the parties to the conflict announced "the regime of silence" in the area of Kiev’s combat operation in Donbass aiming to come over to implementation of the Minsk accords.
Both Kiev and the self-proclaimed republics declared an urgency to pull back heavy weapons, to exchange prisoners of war and to demilitarise the region.
On January 12 the foreign ministers of the "Normandy Quartet" comprising Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine held a meeting in Berlin. The ministers noted at the negotiations their readiness to meet in the coming week following the political directors’ meeting as a condition.
In late January the situation deteriorated after a passenger bus en route from Donetsk to Zlatoustovka came under shelling on January 13. Twelve civilians were killed and at least 16 wounded. Artillery shelling and bombing strikes at Donbass cities have intensified and dozens of peaceful civilians, including women, children, and the elderly, died in them.
On Thursday German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande arrived in Kiev for talks with Poroshenko with the aim to settle the crisis. On Friday the European leaders arrived in Moscow on Friday.
It took Putin, Hollande and Merkel about five hours to try to find a way out of the Ukrainian crisis. No details of the talks both in Kiev and Moscow have been disclosed so far.