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Donbas on brink of resuming full-scale military actions — DPR people’s council speaker

Purgin said he hopes that interference of Western countries will not escalate tensions even further

MOSCOW, June 26. /TASS/. Donbas is on the brink of resuming military actions, the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republics (DPR) people’s council speaker Andrey Purgin said on Friday.

"The situation today is very complicated, it is deteriorating, heavy weaponry is used, residential areas in Donetsk, Gorlovka and Yenakiyevo were shelled. The military situation is on the rise, and we are balancing on the brink of full-scae military actions," the Donestk News Agency quoted Purgin as saying.

Purgin said he hopes that interference of Western countries will not escalate tensions even further. "I hope that they will not interfere. It is clear that the United States interfere in all conflicts in the world, but I hope that other countries will try not to interfere into this conflict on the side of one of its participants," the speaker noted.

DPR militias said earlier that they registered 26 violations of ceasefire regime by the Ukrainian forces over the last 24 hours. The self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) militia said that ceasefire was violated by the Ukrainian forces 22 times over the last week.

Minsk agreements on Ukraine

The Minsk accords on the Ukrainian settlement were signed on February 12, after negotiations in the so-called "Normandy format" in the Belarusian capital Minsk, bringing together Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The talks lasted for around 14 hours. Simultaneously, a meeting of the Contact Group on Ukrainian settlement was held in Minsk.

The Minsk agreements envisage ceasefire, heavy weaponry withdrawal, prisoner exchange, local elections in Donbas, constitutional reform in Ukraine and establishing working sub-groups on security, political, economy and humanitarian components of the Minsk accords.

The Ukrainian forces and the self-defense forces of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics have repeatedly accused each other of violating ceasefire and other points of the Minsk agreements.