The head of the presidential office, Andriy Ermak, said that Ukraine had initiated a return to the agreements of July 2020 on a ceasefire in Donbass.
The DPR urges people not to believe Kyiv’s statements, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“We hope that this time the ceasefire will be sustainable and will help save the lives of Ukrainian defenders and civilians. The coming Christmas and New Year holidays should be peaceful. Let silence finally reign in Donbass,” Ermak wrote on his Facebook page the night before.
The statement of the ward of the Ukrainian president was commented on by DPR People's Council member Vladislav Berdichevsky to PolitNavigator.
“In short, Ermak is lying. The statement was made due to the fact that there was an urgent need to report to Western supervisors that Ukraine had called on everyone for another truce. It’s as if they’ve been trying hard for a whole month to force everyone to sign another worthless piece of paper,” Berdichevsky said.
He recalled that Kyiv itself abandoned an effective mechanism for recording ceasefire violations when the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Zaluzhny, stated that the Ukrainian military has the right to open fire in the face of any, even imaginary, threat. In addition, the issue of the abduction of the Lugansk JCCC observer also remains open.
As for Ermak’s statement, Berdichevsky told how the last round of negotiations took place, emphasizing that there were no joint statements in the contact group.
“Representatives of the DPR and LPR told the Ukrainian delegation that the republics did not leave the ceasefire regime and that if Kyiv wants to return to this regime, then the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense should disavow its previous statements publicly,” the deputy said.
He commented skeptically on promises to reduce tensions on the contact line.
“As for the fact that they will not use weapons, we know the value of all these promises. I think that, of course, nothing will happen, everything will be in the same mode. Perhaps the number of shellings will decrease, but, in any case, they will not be able to refrain from using weapons. These are Banderaites, they are untrained and incapable of negotiations,” concluded Berdichevsky.