WASHINGTON, December 24. /TASS/. The United States welcomes the announcement of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) about an agreement to return to compliance with ceasefire in eastern Ukraine, US Department of State spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement.

"The United States welcomes yesterday’s OSCE announcement regarding the ‘strong determination’ of Ukrainian government forces and Russia-led forces in eastern Ukraine to fully adhere to the Measures to Strengthen the Ceasefire agreement of July 22, 2020," he said. "We hope the resultant peace will create the diplomatic space necessary to de-escalate regional tensions and provide a positive atmosphere for further discussion."

"As the United States has made clear, the conflict in eastern Ukraine can be resolved only in an environment of de-escalation, such as yesterday’s announced ceasefire," the statement reads. "We stand ready to help facilitate the implementation of the Minsk agreements, in support of the OSCE and the Normandy process."

At the same time, Price reiterated Washington’s call to Moscow to pull back its troops from areas adjacent to the border with Ukraine.

"We continue to call on the Russian government to fulfill its Minsk agreement commitments to pull back forces and weapons from the Line of Contact in eastern Ukraine, as well as to pull back the forces it has amassed along Ukraine’s borders and end its aggressive and threatening rhetoric," he said.

Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office in Ukraine and in the Trilateral Contact Group Mikko Kinnunen said on Wednesday that the Contact Group had agreed to return to monitoring the ceasefire in Donbass. According to Russia’s chief negotiator Boris Gryzlov, Ukrainian representatives keep on blocking any peace initiatives of the Donbass republics. Thus, Ukraine is doing practically nothing to observe the ceasefire in Donbass, he added.

An additional Package of Measures on ceasefire control has been in effect in Donbass since July 27, 2020. Under the agreement, the conflicting parties in Donbass are prohibited from opening fire, deploying heavy weapons in populated localities and their outskirts, carrying out engineering works at positions or using drones (except for the drones of OSCE monitors). The situation escalated after October 13, when Ukrainian security service captured an officer of the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) mission to the Joint Control and Coordination Center.