The Ukrainian members of the Joint Centre for Control and Coordination (JCCC) have warned of possible provocations by Russian proxies in the occupied areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions (ORDLO) to discredit the Armed Forces of Ukraine before the next round of the Minsk peace talks, Ukrainian JCCC said.

"The JCCC's Ukrainian members note that pending the next meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group for the peaceful settlement of the situation in the east of Ukraine, the ORDLO media have already released a traditional set of falsifications, which their representatives intend to announce in Minsk on August 2," according to a JCCC statement released by the press service of the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) Headquarters.

Among the militants' statements the JCCC says about reports of the alleged increase in the number of shelling by the Armed Forces "of course with the use of weapons banned by the Minsk Agreements" and the statement of the militants' speaker Eduard Basurin on the preparation of demonstrative shelling of the Ukrainian Army positions for "the preparation of staging scenes of shelling of the territory controlled by the Ukrainian army, accusing the DPR of violating the Minsk agreements."

In particular, the Russian-backed militants claim that the Ukrainian military are allegedly planning to shell some of Ukrainian-controlled settlements before August 2 in order to accuse the other side of this. In addition, the militants disseminate untrue information about an alleged increase in the number of attacks by the ATO forces on the occupied areas.

"After such 'announcements,' as seen from previous similar statements, the illegal armed groups of the ORDLO quite often started to shell the towns of Avdiyivka, Maryinka and Krasnohorivka, and the media under their control expressed 'indignation' at the Ukrainian army's actions. This time, the situation is likely to follow the same scenario," the JCCC said.

What is more, the illegal armed groups of the ORDLO regularly prevent members of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine from fulfilling their tasks of monitoring compliance with the ceasefire, the JCCC added.

"Such actions by the illegal armed formations of the ORDO and the ORLO demonstrate once again the frank disregard for the Minsk agreements, their wish to discredit the Ukrainian Armed Forces prior the TCG meeting and the desire to further aggravate the armed conflict in Donbas," the report says.

Еще по теме