KIEV, October 28. /TASS/. Elections of the heads and parliamentarians of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics scheduled for November 2 will jeopardise the peace process, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

“Any own voting in this Ukrainian territory will hamper the peaceful settlement,” the ministry’s spokesman, Yevgeny Perebeinos, said.

“This will run counter to the Minsk agreements,” he said.

The results of the elections “will not be recognised by the central power or anywhere in the world”,” Perebeinos said.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said the elections in the republics run counter to the Minsk agreements.

The elections “have nothing in common with the Minsk protocol of September 5, 2014 and severely run count to its letter and the spirit”, Poroshenko said, adding that they “jeopardise the whole peace process.”

“Local elections in Donbass’ regions can be held only under Ukrainian legislation,” he said.

Results of the Minsk agreements

According to the UN data as of October 15, the death toll from the armed conflict between government forces and self-defense militias in eastern Ukraine has reached 3,707. UN officials also said the Minsk agreements on the promotion of Ukraine’s peace process are effective, but the peace process is fragile.

The ceasefire agreement has caused a four-fold decrease in the mortality rate that eastern Ukraine had during hostilities. More than 1,000 Ukrainian troops have been released since the beginning of the ceasefire regime.

On September 20, the Contact Group on Ukraine, which met in the Belarusian capital city of Minsk, adopted a memorandum on ceasefire regime. The document has nine provisions, including a ban of the use of all types of weapons and both parties’ withdrawal of heavy weapons with a caliber of more than 100 mm at a distance of 15 kilometres from the line of contact. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is to control the observance of the ceasefire regime. The previous Contact Group meeting in Minsk on September 5 yielded a protocol on peace settlement in southeastern Ukraine. The key provisions were agreements on ceasefire and exchange of prisoners of war.

Humanitarian situation in eastern Ukraine

The Russian Foreign Ministry has marked an improvement of the humanitarian situation in south-eastern Ukraine, where refugees are returning and artillery fire has become less intense, the head of the ministry's department for CIS countries said on Tuesday.

“The past days have shown that in general the ceasefire regime holds. Provocations are taking place, but there is now no more massive firing like several days ago,” Viktor Sorokin said at the meeting of the Federation Council commission for monitoring the situation in Ukraine.

Sorokin said for the first time the number of citizens coming back to the Donetsk and Luhansk regions has exceeded the number of those who are leaving the areas “This is hope for restoration of peace and constructive work,” the diplomat said.

At the same time he said that the humanitarian situation in the region is still of concern. “The infrastructure and residential buildings have been severely damaged. Power supply has been cut off,” he said.

“Russia has already sent three humanitarian convoys to southeastern Ukraine,” he said, adding that the fourth convoy is expected to reach the Russian-Ukrainian border by Wednesday morning.

Earlier this week, the Russian Federal Migration Service (FMS) said some 226,000 Ukrainian nationals have sought a refugee status or a temporary asylum in Russia since the military conflict hit the former Soviet republic in April.