Updated on 01:13 p.m. Moscow Time
DONETSK, September 3 (RIA Novosti) – A representative from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) said there are doubts that Ukrainian military units in the country’s east will abide by President Petro Poroshenko’s call for an “immediate ceasefire” in the region because he does not have control over all of them.
“Poroshenko doesn’t have control over the punitive battalions, and there is no fact that they will subordinate to his decision,” the head of the DPR’s Defense Ministry’s press service, Vladislav Brig, told RIA Novosti.
He added that he has not heard of any agreements with the DPR in regard to a ceasefire.
“The DPR Army will not stop shooting until there are no more punitive [troops] in Donbas,” he said.
Earlier on Wednesday the Ukrainian president’s press service said that after a telephone conversation between Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin that Poroshenko announced an “immediate ceasefire” in eastern Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the presidents’ views to ending the crisis considerably coincide. Peskov also said the heads of state exchanged opinions of what needed to be done to halt the bloodshed in the country’s southeast.
On September 1, the Contact Group on Ukrainian reconciliation, comprising Russia, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Ukrainian government and eastern Ukraine’s independence supporters met in Belarus’ capital Minsk.
Representatives from the Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics said during the meeting that if the self-proclaimed republics received certain legislative guarantees of their special status, they would use every effort to “save the single economic, cultural and political space of Ukraine and the whole space of the Russian-Ukrainian civilization."
The next Contact Group meeting is scheduled for September 5.
Ukraine’s southeastern regions never recognized the legitimacy of the new authorities that took over the country after the February 22 regime change. They protested against the new government and held referendums on self-determination, voting to separate from Ukraine. In return, Kiev launched a military operation to crack down on the independence supporters.
Moscow continues to insist on an immediate end to the “punitive operation” in eastern Ukraine, which from mid-April till August 27, claimed the lives of more than 2,500 civilians and resulted in 6,000 injured, according to the United Nations.
