MOSCOW, September 8. / TASS /. Volunteers who are not associated with the Russian army have always been in Donbass; the ‘Defenders of Russia’ Congress of Veterans held in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) has no official affiliation with Moscow, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday.

"These same people, rather, a social movement has no official affiliation," Peskov stated. "You know that there have always been volunteers who have nothing to do with the Russian Armed Forces. The volunteers were not only from Russia but also from other countries all over the world, from European states, and so on. It is not a question that there were many from Russia," the Kremlin spokesman mentioned.

Peskov stressed that Donbass was currently rejected by its country and "was literally under a blockade in every sense of the word."

Mass protests broke out in eastern Ukraine, mostly populated by Russian-speaking citizens, following a coup d’etat in Ukraine in February 2014. Subsequently, the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics were proclaimed in the region. In April of the same year, Acting President of Ukraine Alexander Turchinov announced the launch of an "anti-terrorist operation" in the country’s southeast, which by summer had grown into full-scale hostilities with the use of heavy armored vehicles and aircraft.