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DPR Defense Ministry: Kiev could use foreign mercenaries in provocations on May 9

In this connection, the DPR militia command has taken measures to boost military police and patrol activities and intensified checks at roadblocks and checkpoints

MOSCOW, April 21. /TASS/. Foreign military units could be used by Kiev in provocations on the territory of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s republics during festive events devoted to the Victory Day, self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) Defense Ministry spokesman Eduard Basurin said Tuesday.

"Ukrainian nationalistic units are preparing provocations in the DPR and LPR shortly before celebrations of the 70th anniversary of [the Soviet Union’s] Victory in the Great Patriotic War," Basurin told the Donetsk News Agency.

"Military instructors from NATO countries train nationalistic units in the Lvov Region; besides, on April 17, 300 paratroopers of the US 173rd Airborne Brigade arrived at the Yavorov Range [50 kilometers from Lvov]," he said.

"It is not ruled out that foreign units could be used in provocations on the territory of the DPR and LPR to destabilize the situation and disrupt festive events devoted to the Day of Victory of the Soviet people over fascism," Basurin said.

He specified that "a sabotage and reconnaissance unit numbering 300-500 people has been formed in the Lvov Region from among activists of radical organizations. It is expected to be redeployed to the area of Stanichno-Luganskoye [12 kilometers north of Lugansk] for further provocations on behalf of the Russian army."

In this connection, the DPR militia command has taken measures to boost military police and patrol activities and intensified checks at roadblocks and checkpoints, he said.

Clashes between Ukrainian troops and local militias in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions during Kiev’s military operation, conducted since mid-April 2014, to regain control over parts of the breakaway territories, which call themselves the Donetsk and Lugansk People's republics, have left thousands dead and forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee Ukraine’s embattled east.

The parties to the Ukrainian conflict mediated by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) agreed on a ceasefire at talks in September 2014 in the Belarusian capital Minsk two days after Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed his plan to settle the situation in the east of Ukraine.

The ceasefire has reportedly been numerously violated since. There have been several meetings of the Trilateral Contact Group on east Ukrainian settlement comprising representatives of Russia, Ukraine and the OSCE and of the Normandy Four (Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany) aimed at finding ways to diplomatically and politically settle the intra-Ukrainian conflict.