Kuleba initiates urgent conversation with Lavrov over shelling in Donbas

07.09.2020 09:56

Ukrinform

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has initiated an urgent conversation with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov due to a September 6 shelling attack by Russian-backed forces in Donbas in which one Ukrainian serviceman was killed and another one was wounded.

According to Ukrinform, Kuleba wrote this on his Facebook page.

He called the provocations by illegal armed groups in the Joint Forces Operation area "obvious attempts to disrupt the ceasefire and create significant obstacles to the peace process in general."

Kuleba said that Ukraine stands for unconditional and strict adherence to the ceasefire regime. "The path to peace and deoccupation of our territories is thorny, but it begins when shots are not fired," he added.

"Acting in good faith, Ukraine, in connection with these provocations, has taken urgent measures envisaged in the agreement reached by the Trilateral Contact Group on July 22, 2020 on the introduction of a package of additional measures to support the ceasefire from July 27, 2020. In particular, it immediately used a coordination mechanism to respond to ceasefire violations with the assistance of the Joint Control and Coordination Center and also informed the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine about the incident," he said.

In addition, according to Kuleba, he initiated an urgent conversation with Lavrov to discuss the situation and ways out of it.

On September 6, Russian occupation forces violated the ceasefire twice, killing a Ukrainian serviceman and wounding another one.