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Kremlin: Russia hopes hostilities won’t flare up in Donbass

Dmitry Peskov stressed that the tension in the Donbass area remained above the norm

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Reduction of tensions in Donbass no reason for complacency, Kremlin says

MOSCOW, April 29. /TASS/. Russia hopes that hostilities won’t resume in Ukraine’s southeast, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a live broadcast of the Great Game program on Channel One TV Thursday.

"The only thing we hope for is that common sense will prevail after all and such insanity as the resumption of hostilities in the southeast of Ukraine will not take place," he pointed out.

The Kremlin spokesman stressed that the tension in the Donbass area remained above the norm.

The Russian presidential spokesman pointed to the obvious fact that Washington’s actions concerning military support for Kiev were playing into the hands of the Ukrainian armed forces that have assumed an incendiary position.

"To what extent does President [of Ukraine] Vladimir Zelensky control the Ukrainian armed forces and can President Zelensky guard the Ukrainian military against the influence of nationalists and extremists? This is a big question and there is no exact answer to it," Peskov pointed out.

The collective West’s dual approaches towards Russia also further escalated the tension, the Kremlin spokesman said.

"In this situation, when tens of thousands of NATO forces are located and moving close to Russia’s borders, this is described using the peaceful word ‘drills.’ However, when the Russian Armed Forces are engaged in the same activities on their own territory, the collective West labels this as nothing else but Russian aggression," Peskov specified.

Despite the accords on additional truce control measures agreed by the participants in the Contact Group on settling the situation in southeastern Ukraine, the situation in Donbass has started to escalate since late February, with intensive firefights along the engagement line and casualties reported on both sides. Ukraine blamed the Donbass republics for the escalation. The republics retaliated, pointing to Kiev breaching the July accords as the main cause of the flare-up.

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