MOSCOW, February 9. /TASS/. The claims of Ukraine’s special services that Russian officers from the Joint Center for Ceasefire Control and Coordination "collaborate with militias" have no proof, the defense ministry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic said on Tuesday.
"These are just unfounded statements aimed at discrediting the Russian side as one of the guarantors of maintaining peace in Donbass," DPR’s defense ministry spokesman Eduard Basurin was quoted by the Donetsk news agency as saying.
The representatives of the joint center, set up by Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE in eastern Ukraine in October 2014, monitor the implementation of the ceasefire regime and compliance with the Minsk agreements, he stressed.
"It is strange that personnel of Ukraine’s special services are not aware of the activity of such body as the JCCC. Such actions of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) should be assessed as a blatant provocation," Basurin said.
New accusations against Russian officers show Kiev seeks no peace
According to a military official of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic, the claims of Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) that Russian officers from the joint ceasefire control center collaborate with militias signal that Kiev wants no peaceful solution of the Donbass conflict.
Over the past two years, the Ukrainian side has not confirmed by any single evidence dozens of its accusations against the Russian military. Not a single proof has been provided," the LPR people's militia deputy commander, Igor Yashenko, was quoted by the LuganskInformCenter as saying.
The official said Kiev has launched a smear campaign against Russia instead of implementing the Minsk peace deal signed last February and resolve the conflict in Donbass by peaceful means.
"Kiev forces implement the orders of their overseas masters and do their utmost to tarnish Russia’s Armed Forces and the whole Russia in the eyes of the world community," Yashenko said.
Ahead of the next round of the Normandy Four (Russia, Ukraine, France, Germany) talks, Kiev’s new lie "has again shown that it wants no peace in Donbass and in Ukraine itself as well," he said.
Earlier in the day, Ukraine’s Security Service said in its Twitter microblog that a group of Russian officers cooperated with Donbass militias while "hiding behind the mandate."
Last week, Ukraine’s charge d’affaires was summoned to Russia’s Foreign Ministry over the incident at a checkpoint on the Russian-Ukrainian state border that took place on February 2-3.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Moscow expressed concerns over a border incident and the shameful treatment by Ukrainian law enforcers of Russian officers from the JCCC.
The diplomat condemned "an absolutely disgusting and shameful behavior" of Ukraine’s law enforcers who checked a group of 73 Russian officers from the JCCC for 16 hours. The officers were returning to Russia from a business trip as part of planned rotation, she said.