KIEV, September 17. /ITAR-TASS/. Ukraine has spent almost 63 million hryvnias (about $5 billion) on a military operation in the southeast of the country, Ukrainian president’s envoy for conflict settlement in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions told a briefing on Wednesday.

The southeastern Ukrainian Donetsk and Luhansk regions have been the scene of fierce clashes between local militias and troops loyal to Kiev seeking to regain control over the breakaway territories, which on May 11 proclaimed their independence at local referendums and now call themselves the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s republics.

On September 5, the trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine (Russia, Ukraine and the OSCE) and representatives of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s republics reached an agreement on ceasefire in Ukraine’s embattled southeast, troops withdrawal, exchange of prisoners and provision of humanitarian aid.

Truce is largely holding in eastern Ukraine.