MOSCOW, April 16. /TASS/. The reduction in number of ceasefire violations in southeastern Ukraine is not a reason to calm down and ease attention to the monitoring of the situation, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists Friday.
"There are less reports about ceasefire violations coming [these days], and the number of violations receded indeed," Peskov noted. "But there is probably no reason to calm down completely and stop scrupulously monitoring the situation at the contact line just yet."
Moscow hopes that German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron will be able to convey to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky the necessity to stop provocations at the line of engagement in southeastern Ukraine.
"To us it would be very important that both Mr. Macron and Ms. Merkel during a conference call with Mr. Zelensky used their influence and conveyed to the Ukrainian leader the idea of necessity of a complete cessation of any provocative actions at the line of engagement and emphasized the need to observe a ceasefire regime unconditionally," he noted.
"Of course, this would be a great occasion to recall yet again the Minsk set of measures and the necessity to implement it," the Kremlin press secretary added.
The situation in Donbass escalated in late February, when shootouts were registered almost every day. The sides accused each other of the escalation.
Earlier it was reported that on Friday, Macron would meet with Zelensky at the Elysee Palace and they would hold a video conference talk with Merkel. Previously, Zelensky’s Spokeswoman Yulia Mendel had reported that Ukraine’s head of state intended to raise the issue of the Donbass situation and the concentration of Russian troops near the Ukrainian borders at the talks in Paris on April 16.