Illegal armed units of the self-proclaimed "Luhansk People's Republic" (LPR) will be prepared to discuss the possibility of laying down arms only after Ukrainian government forces leave the region.
“All calls for the militiamen to lay down arms may be discussed only after the Ukrainian troops’ withdrawal,” the “Luhansk republic’s” Prime Minister Vasyl Nikitin told Interfax on July 1, when commenting on Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s decision not to prolong the ceasefire in the country’s eastern regions.
“As for this ceasefire, we did not see it as such,” he said.
At the same time, Nikitin denied Kyiv’s claims accusing gunmen in eastern Ukraine of failing to observe the ceasefire.
“Rather, the opposite is true: it was the Ukrainian armed forces who did not observe the ceasefire,” he said.
