Ukraine accuses militia of disrupting disengagement in Stanytsia Luhanska
KYIV. Nov 27 (Interfax) - The disengagement of the Ukrainian armed forces and militia in the Stanytsia Luhanska was again disrupted on Saturday, Borys Kremenetskyi, the Ukrainian head of the Joint Center for Control and Coordination (JCCC), said.
The Trilateral Contract Group (TCG) reached preliminary agreement to separate combatants in this area on Saturday, November 26, but one of the these days the area came under fire once again, in breach of the Minsk agreements' requirement for ceasefire to hold in this area for at least seven days, he said.
"Three shell attacks on the area were carried out with the use of automatic grenade launchers, a 30-millimeter BMP-2 cannon, as well as rocket launchers and small arms," Kremenetskyi said on the 112 Ukraine television channel on Sunday morning.
It was reported that on November 23 the TCG Ukrainian representative Leonid Kuchma's press secretary Darka Olifer said that the TCG had determined that, if the Luhansk militia stick to the ceasefire, disengagement in the Stanytsia Luhanska area would be possible from November 26.
Kuchma himself, when asked the day earlier about a possibility of agreement to separate combatants in Stanytsia Luhanska, said there was some "some game" going on on this issue and "security problems were and remain at the forefront, and without having them resolved there is no talking of anything else."
On November 11 the Special Monitoring Mission of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe said that ceasefire was holding in two of the three areas set for disengagement, the exception being Stanytsia Luhanska. In view of this, neither party had begun removing forces and equipment there. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said then that while it was ready to remove its forces and equipment from the TCG-determined site in the Stanytsia Luhanska area, the enemy had failed to fulfill the necessary conditions for the process.