KIEV, July 29. /TASS/. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has pledged that Kiev will guarantee its compliance with the ceasefire in Donbass. "We will do everything to preserve the armistice. We are fulfilling [the truce] not at 99%, but at 100%," he assured journalists on Wednesday.
At the same time, he noted, the Ukrainian side will "forcefully respond" to the ceasefire violations. "If some serious attack is going on, serious shelling that goes beyond our agreements, they [Ukrainian soldiers - TASS] will respond very forcefully," he stressed.
According to him, the provision on the stable ceasefire "is the most important one in the Minsk process and is an important provision not only during our meetings of the Normandy Four (Germany, Ukraine, Russia and France), but is simply the principal point if we want to end the war and return our territories and people." "Without a ceasefire nothing will happen," the president emphasized.
He stated that individual ceasefire violations have been registered. "Can we say that we agreed on a ceasefire? Yes. Can we say that there are no night shootings? No, they do occur, because there are 410 kilometers of the line of contact, it is very difficult to control it all," he added.
The president also noted that the Ukrainian side continues talks on the settlement in Donbass.
Since the fall of 2014 members of the Contact group claimed over 20 times that they reached agreements on the observation of the "silence regime" in Donbass. During the Normandy Four summit in Paris on December 9, the leaders of Russia, Germany, Ukraine and France stated the necessity of establishing a full-fledged armistice by the end of 2019. However, the Ukrainian army repeatedly violated the ceasefire regime.
On July 22, the Contact group coordinated the introduction of additional measures to ensure the ceasefire regime starting on July 27 and the control of its implementation which will remain effective until the complete settlement of the conflict. They include a ban on attack and intelligence and sabotage activities, on use of any type of aircraft, on shooting, including sniper fire, as well as on stationing heavy weapons in populated localities.