UNITED NATIONS, October 31. /TASS/. Moscow is calling on all sides in Ukraine, as well as external forces, to abstain from unconsidered and provocative steps and contribute to dialogue in the country, the Russian Federation’s permanent representative to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin said Thursday at a meeting of the UN Security Council.
Churkin said Ukraine is “living through a very responsible period that requires careful and balanced actions and encouragement of the Ukrainian sides to continue the political dialogue”.
“In this connection, we are urging all internal and external players to abstain from unconsidered, all the more so provocative, statements and actions,” he said.
The Russian envoy underlined that “only through the inclusive nationwide dialogue on the basis of the Minsk protocol and memorandum and the Geneva statement of April 17, 2014, will the split Ukrainian society be able to overcome the deep internal crisis and return to the road of stable harmonious development in the interests of all political, regional and ethnic groups of the population.”
Fierce clashes between troops loyal to Kiev and local militias in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions during Kiev’s military operation, conducted since mid-April, to regain control over the breakaway territories, which call themselves the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s republics, have killed over 3,700 people, brought massive destruction and forced hundreds of thousands to flee Ukraine’s southeast.
The parties to the Ukrainian conflict agreed on a ceasefire at talks mediated by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on September 5 in Belarusian capital Minsk two days after Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed his plan to settle the situation in the east of Ukraine.
The ceasefire took effect the same day but has reportedly occasionally been violated.
On September 19 in Minsk, the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine comprising representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE adopted a memorandum outlining the parameters for the implementation of commitments on the ceasefire in Ukraine laid down in the Minsk Protocol of September 5.
The document contains nine points, including in particular a ban on the use of all armaments and withdrawal of weapons with the calibers of over 100 millimeters to a distance of 15 kilometers from the contact line from each side. The OSCE was tasked with controlling the implementation of memorandum provisions.
The Geneva statement of April 17 signed by Russia, Ukraine, the United States and the European Union envisioned an immediate start of the constitutional reform in Ukraine two months after a coup in the country.