DONETSK, January 17. /TASS/. The provocation in Dnepropetrovsk was hatched by Western intelligence agencies ahead of meetings in Switzerland’s Davos and Germany’s Ramstein, Rodion Miroshnik, former ambassador of the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) to Moscow, told TASS on Tuesday.

"There are serious grounds to think that it (the collapse of a residential house in Dnepropetrovsk - TASS) was organized and sanctioned as a provocation. Too many factors indicate that it was premeditated, hatched by foreign, most likely British, special services as an operation to distract attention [from the failures on the frontline] and reposition Ukraine ahead of a meeting in Ramstein and, probably, other meetings like Davos, which will discuss possibilities for attracting more weapons for Ukraine’s needs," he said.

According to Miroshnik, the timing of the incident was right. "I don’t believe in such coincidences," he said, adding that the words of Alexey Arestovich, the then Ukrainian presidential adviser, were not in line with the general narrative. "Just one slip of the tongue was enough to make Arestovich tender resignation and go, whereas he used to make hundreds," he said.

Arestovich said on January 14 that the partial collapse of a residential house in Dnepropetrovsk had been caused by a rocket downed by the Ukrainian air defense system. This statement stirred public outrage in Ukraine, with Arestovich being accused of high treason, causing him to resign.

Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov vowed on January 16 that Russian troops do not target residential houses.

The World Economic Forum will be held in Davos from January 17-20. Russia is not taking part.

A meeting of the Western contact group on support for Ukraine is scheduled for January 20 at a US air base in Germany’s Ramstein.