Militants said that Russian officers "instructed" the SMM OSCE to contact representatives of the "DNR"

After suspending the work of Russian officers in the Joint Center for Control and Coordination of the Ceasefire, the self-proclaimed "DNR delegation" is ready to conduct a dialogue with representatives of the OSCE SMM and Ukraine. This was announced today at the briefing by the self-proclaimed leader of the "DNR delegation" Ruslan Yakubov.

He said that the institution, which is not part of the JCCC, is ready to continue its activities "in the regular mode" instead of Russians and to conduct a dialogue "with representatives of the OSCE SMM as well as with representatives of the Ukrainian delegation in the JCCC".

He noted that a few days earlier, Russian officers had allegedly handed over contacts of representatives of the "DNR" in the JCCC to the leadership of the SMM OSCE for organizing further cooperation.

As previously reported, after the withdrawal of Russian officers, the terrorist "LNR" also announced the creation of a "delegation" in the Joint Center for Control and Coordination of the Ceasefire and also expressed a desire to cooperate with the OSCE mission.

First Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Iryna Herashchenko expressed the opinion that Russia's withdrawal of its representatives could lead to an aggravation of the situation on the front line, as well as become a lever for imposing a direct dialogue with the militants of terrorist "republics". Declarations about the readiness of the "representatives" of the “republics” to continue the duties of the Russian officers in JCCC, fully confirm this version.

However, there could be no official delegations of terrorist "republics" in the Joint Center. Until yesterday, the JCCC consisted of 128 officers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and Russia. They worked in 16 control groups - 8 in the territory under Ukraine's control and 8 in the zone of occupation.