The press service of the Ukrainian president spoke about the telephone conversation between Petro Poroshenko and Vladimir Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko admitted that the ceasefire, which has been in effect for just over a day, has generally been observed. As Mr. Poroshenko’s press service reported, the heads of state discussed steps to achieve a permanent ceasefire, as well as the issue of delivering humanitarian aid.

Photo: Petr Shelomovsky, Kommersant / buy photo

“The heads of the two states stated that the ceasefire is generally being implemented. Petro Poroshenko and Vladimir Putin discussed steps to achieve a permanent ceasefire. The parties also emphasized the need for maximum involvement of the OSCE in monitoring the situation and monitoring the ceasefire, as well as ways of interaction for the delivery of Ukrainian and international humanitarian aid,” the press service of Petro Poroshenko said in a statement

Today, representatives of the National Security and Defense Service of Ukraine (NSDC) and the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) accused each other of violating the terms of the truce. “To date, the termination agreement has not been fully respected. That is, it is too early to talk about a complete ceasefire,” said DPR Prime Minister Alexander Zakharchenko. The militia headquarters told RIA Novosti about four people who died on Saturday night: “The Kiev, Kuibyshevsky, Petrovsky districts of Donetsk came under fire - four civilians were killed, ten received shrapnel wounds.”

In turn, the National Security and Defense Council did not recognize the violation of the truce, accusing representatives of the militia of shooting. “The forces of the anti-terrorist operation, strictly observing the order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, support the ceasefire,” said Andriy Lysenko, a representative of the information and analytical center of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) of Ukraine. He noted that there were no losses among Ukrainian military personnel. According to UNIAN , Mr. Lysenko said that since the announcement of the truce, the militias fired at the positions of the Ukrainian army 10 times. In addition, the Ukrainian volunteer territorial defense battalion “Aidar” spoke about casualties in its ranks, but denied earlier reports about the death of its commander Sergei Melnichuk. “Indeed, the second company of the battalion was ambushed after the truce was declared. According to preliminary data, 11 people were killed. We have no information about Melnichuk’s death. He just got in touch a couple of hours ago,” assistant battalion commander Roman Romanovich told Interfax .

DPR Prime Minister Alexander Zakharchenko announced his readiness to implement the clauses of the ceasefire protocol signed yesterday: today he promises to release prisoners of war and hopes that Kyiv will do the same on Monday. Earlier, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) handed over lists of captured and missing persons (more than 200 people) to representatives of the militia. However, a source at the DPR headquarters, in a conversation with a RIA Novosti correspondent, did not rule out that the process of transferring prisoners could drag on for at least a week due to the preparation of documents. “We were ready to hand over Ukrainian prisoners of war yesterday, but the Ukrainian side is not yet ready to give us our prisoners of war, since documents are being prepared for them,” said a DPR representative.

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“The ceasefire is generally being implemented”