LUHANSK. April 14 (Interfax) - The self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) stands ready to repulse the enemy on the line of contact in Donbas in the event of full-scale hostilities, LPR leader Leonid Pasechnik said.
"I want to declare that we, the republics of Donbas, do not want war and have taken many steps to reach peace throughout all these years! However, if Ukraine launches full-scale hostilities, we stand ready to give a worthy rebuff to the invaders and no one should have any illusions about this," Pasechnik said in a statement released on Wednesday.
The LPR head noted that Luhansk is still focused on resolving the crisis in Donbas peacefully. "We still comply with the Minsk Agreements, and no one can accuse us of violating them. The Russian Federation supports us at the international level, and we are grateful to it for that," he added.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces are using electronic warfare stations to suppress signals from unmanned aerial vehicles of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Special Monitoring Mission (OSCE SMM) in Donbas "in order to prevent the detection of military equipment deployed in violation of the Minsk Agreements," representative of the LPR people's militia Ivan Filiponenko said on Wednesday.
He clarified that, according to intelligence, servicemen from the 92nd Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces suppressed the control channels of the OSCE mission's drone using the Bukovel-AD jamming station in the area of Popasna. "As a result, the SMM monitors were forced to stop monitoring the territory temporarily occupied by the Ukrainian troops and land the drone," Filiponenko said.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces have fired at the territory of the republic four times since the beginning of the day, he added. Grenade launchers, machine guns, and small arms were fired in the shelling on the settlements Lozove and Zolote-5. Information about casualties and damage to infrastructure is being specified.