LPR accuses Kyiv of sabotaging Minsk accords implementation
LUHANSK. May 26 (Interfax) - The Ukrainian side is putting on a semblance of efforts to settle the conflict in Donbas but is actually sabotaging the implementation of the Minsk Agreements, Olga Kobtseva, representative of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) to the Trilateral Contact Group's humanitarian subgroup, said.
"This relative lull in fighting along the contact line achieved thanks to the Minsk Agreements is only serving to put on a semblance of measures to settle the conflict. The problem is not just that Kyiv is sabotaging the fulfillment of the package of measures to implement the Minsk accords envisaged by the reached agreements, but it is systematically exacerbating the conflict, seeking to bring the humanitarian situation in Donbas to the state of a humanitarian catastrophe," Kobtseva told reporters on Friday.
The Minsk Agreements were approved by the UN Security Council and have resolution status, she said.
"It is an international act that should be implemented by the Ukrainian government in the first place. But this has not happened thus far, and, in accordance with the Minsk Agreements, Ukraine was supposed to change its legislative framework, but we are not observing that today either," the LPR representative said.
"Both evident and secret mechanisms of this all-out war against the population of Donbas are designed to deprive it of its fundamental human rights and freedoms. It is difficult to say which option is more frightening: an official blockade which is being artificially created by the current authorities in Ukraine or special services' secret operations which are aimed at intimidating people and creating an uncontrollable situation and chaos in the republic," she said.
The Donbas blockade issue "is having a limited impact on the republic's life, and Kyiv is starting to more actively use secret mechanisms of warfare," she said.
"Today we have indisputable evidence that sabotage groups are being sent to the territory of the [self-proclaimed] republics, and if at first they started by bombing substations and assassinating political and military leaders, then today they are targeting infrastructure facilities, industrial enterprises, and, unfortunately, we have to admit, even representatives of international organizations that operate in the territory of Donbas," Kobtseva said.
"We are convinced that it is impossible to secure a solution to the conflict in Donbas without the international community's relevant assessment and reaction to the activities of the current Ukrainian government. Given such a position, Europe will have to share the Ukrainian authorities' responsibility for possible human casualties should terrorist attacks be staged on industrial enterprises, mines and other facilities located in the territory of the republic," she said.