"Ukrainian military provocations in the southeast should not be allowed to escalate into the full-scale fighting along the whole 'front' line. A relapse to war could bury the peace process. In this context, we urge all international partners to influence Kiev, in order to prevent such a disastrous scenario," the letter reads.
Earlier in the day, Russian Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Alexander Lukashevich said that the Ukrainian government continued to display unwillingness to fully implement a set of measures aimed at resolving the conflict in the country’s southeast.
Southeastern Ukraine has been suffering from a crisis triggered by a military operation launched by the Kiev authorities against local militias in April 2014. The latter have refused to recognize the pro-Western government in Kiev that came to power in what they consider to have been a coup.
In February 2015, a peace agreement was signed between the conflicting sides in the Belarusian capital Minsk. The deal stipulates a full ceasefire, weapons withdrawal from the line of contact in eastern Ukraine, as well as constitutional reforms which would give a special status to the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics.
