The Ukrainian mission to the Joint Center for Control and Coordination (JCCC) has declared the Ukrainian Armed Forces' readiness to withdraw forces and hardware in Stanytsia Luhanska but said this would be impossible for now due to the ongoing attacks from the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic (LPR).

"The Ukrainian mission to the JCCC reiterates the readiness of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to take the steps prescribed by the Framework Decision of the Trilateral Contact Group on the Disengagement of Forces and Hardware in Sector No 1 (Stanytsia Luhanska). Yet tensions have been escalating lately and the number of cessation of hostilities regime violations has grown along the entire contact line, including by use of weapons and military hardware which were due to be withdrawn to the distances established by the Minsk agreements on the part of armed units from the individual districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions," head of the Ukrainian mission to the JCCC Maj. Gen. Borys Kremenetsky said in a statement posted on the army operation press center's page on Facebook on Thursday.

In his words, 41 shelling incidents (988 shells and mines) were observed as of 10 p.m. on October 12; two servicemen of the Ukrainian army were killed and another 19 suffered injuries over the past two days.

Besides, monitors from the Ukrainian mission to the JCCC visually observed at about 8:15 p.m. on October 12 that a group of armed people opened chaotic fire from small arms near a pedestrian bridge in LPR territory, within the limits of disengagement sector No 1 (Stanytsia Luhanska), and Ukrainian army positions came under attack of a mounted anti-tank grenade launcher (two shots) and a large-caliber machinegun (seven bursts) at 8:53 p.m., he said.

The Ukrainian mission to the JCCC informed the OSCE SMM of those facts.

"The aforesaid facts indicate that the administrations of the individual districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions are unwilling to implement the Framework Decision of the Trilateral Contact Group on the Disengagement of Forces and Hardware in Sector No 1 in the near future [...]. For the purposes of the promotion of the Framework Decision, the Ukrainian mission to the JCCC has been conducting round-the-clock monitoring of the disengagement areas; also engineering units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces have built observation posts (shelters) for the OSCE SMM," Kremenetsky said in his statement.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday it was ready to begin the disengagement of forces and hardware in the Stanytsia Luhanska area on Thursday.

In turn, self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) negotiator in Minsk Vladislav Deinego said he hoped that the October 13 attempt to disengage forces and hardware in the remaining pilot security zone on the contact line would be successful.

Parties to the Trilateral Contact Group for Ukraine agreed to disengage forces and hardware in a number of populated localities on the Donbas contact line on September 21. The document stipulates the creation of three pilot security zones in the village of Petrovske (on the line of contact with the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic [DPR]) and the populated localities of Zolote and Stanytsia Luhanska (on the line of contact with the LPR).

The sides agreed at first to begin the disengagement of forces and hardware in the pilot areas on October 1 yet managed to do so only in Zolote. The conflicting sides disengaged in Petrovske later. Disengagement attempts have repeatedly failed in Stanytsia Luhanska.