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Ukrainian troops reinforcing positions near disengagement area in Zolotoye - LPR

Meanwhile, the Donetsk People’s Republic said that Ukrainian troops had pulled snipers, armored vehicles and trucks with munitions to the disengagement section in Petrovskoye

LUGANSK, October 13. /TASS/. Ukrainian troops are conducting engineering works at their positions in the disengagement zone near Zolotoye, Ivan Filiponenko, spokesman for the defense ministry of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR), said on Sunday.

"On October 11, our reconnaissance parties observed three earth movers and six engineering vehicles that were reinforcing Ukrainian positions in the disengagement area near Zolotoye. This information was confirmed by a report by the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM)," LuganskInformCenter quoted him as saying.

Meanwhile, the Donetsk People’s Republic said that Ukrainian troops had pulled snipers, armored vehicles and trucks with munitions to the disengagement section in Petrovskoye. Apart from that, on Saturday Ukrainian troops reportedly planted 47 anti-tank mines along the motor road linking Bogdanovka and Viktorovka near the disengagement section in Petrovskoye.

A framework agreement on disengagement of forces in Donbass was signed by Ukraine, Russia, the OSCE and the self-proclaimed republics in Donetsk and Lugansk in September 2016.

Under the agreement, security zones are to be created at three sections of the line of contact, namely near Petrovskoye (in the Donetsk People’s Republic, or DPR), Zolotoye and Stanitsa Luganskaya (both in the Lugansk People’s Republic, or LPR). The agreement envisages withdrawal of armed forces from the line of contact to create security zones at least one kilometer wide and one kilometer deep.

The disengagement process was completed near Zolotoye and Petrovskoye in October 2016. Disengagement near Stanitsa Luganskaya was never carried out under Ukraine’s former President Pyotr Poroshenko. Moreover, Ukrainian troops returned to their former positions in Petrovskoye and Zolotoye.

The sides got back to the implementation of the 2016 agreement only after the presidential elections in Ukraine when Kiev formed a new delegation to the Contact Group. In late June 2019, the parties finally disengaged forces near Stanitsa Luganskaya.

At the October 1 meeting of the Contact Group, the parties agreed to begin a new disengagement process in Zolotoye and Petrovskoye as it remains the only unimplemented condition for a Normandy Quartet summit.

Ukraine and the self-proclaimed republics were supposed to disengage forces near Petrovskoye and Zolotoye from October 9 through 11 but Ukraine broke down the process.

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