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Russia urges Ukraine to stop "armed provocations" in Donbass

Xinhua, February 1, 2017 Adjust font size:

Russia called on Ukraine to "immediately stop armed provocations" in the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement Tuesday.

The ministry urges Ukranian government to observe the ceasefire, reached in Sept. 2014, in the southeast of Ukraine, where conflicts between Ukrainian government forces and pro-independence insurgents have recently escalated.

Ukrainian forces and insurgents clashed heavily for a third straight day, claiming at least 13 lives since Sunday.

"The southeast of Ukraine, which is already suffering due to the economic blockade of Kiev, is again on the verge of a humanitarian and environmental catastrophe," the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

A civil war broke out in southeast part of Ukraine in April 2014 after local residents refused to recognize the new Ukrainian authorities. Violence has been plaguing the Donbass region since then.

The two sides reached a peace agreement brokered by Russia, France and Germany in September 2014 in Belarussian capital of Minsk, and a more detailed renewal of the agreement was signed in February 2015.

The Minsk deals envisage a ceasefire, a withdrawal of heavy weaponry from the contact line, a prisoner exchange, and holding local elections in Donbass, among other measures.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Monday that his country remains committed to the Minsk agreements.

"There is no alternative to the deals," Poroshenko told a joint briefing in Berlin with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who expressed concern over the current situation in eastern Ukraine.

The European Union on Tuesday slammed the escalated fighting in eastern Ukraine and called for an immediate end to the fighting. Endit