'Harvest Truce' Violation in Donbass Beneficial Only for Kiev - Lugansk Militia

The breach of the so-called harvest truce in eastern Ukraine is beneficial only for Kiev, as it seeks to justify the non-implementation of Minsk agreements, spokesman for the Lugansk People's Republic's (LPR) militia Andrey Marochko told Sputnik on Friday.

LUGANSK (Sputnik) — Earlier in the day, Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko claimed Donbass militia were allegedly undermining the truce, which entered into force on June 24.

"The truce's failure is beneficial only for the Ukrainian side to justify the non-implementation of the Minsk agreements, to write off non-military losses to military operations," Marochko said.

The spokesman noted that LPR intelligence record the deaths of Ukrainian soldiers not caused by military operations on an almost daily basis.

"Last week, we stated that Ukrainian security forces died from their own mines near the line of contact," Marochko stressed, adding that LPR's militia fully respected the ceasefire regime and implemented the Minsk accords.

"I declare that in case of deliberate violation of the ceasefire regime by the Ukrainian armed forces LPR peoples' militia reserves the right to take appropriate countermeasures," the spokesman noted.

On June 21, a trilateral contact group, composed of Russian, Ukrainian and Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) mediators, agreed to impose a ceasefire in Ukraine's eastern regions during the summer harvest, which would last from June 24 to August 31. This truce is the fourth attempt this year at forcing warring parties to lay down the arms and allow peace to resume in the Donbas region, which has been torn apart by several years of fighting.

The military conflict in Donbass has been ongoing since 2014. That year, Kiev launched a military operation against the region's local residents who refused to recognize the new government in Kiev, which came to power after what many considered to be coup.