MOSCOW. Oct 28 (Interfax) - Ukraine disregarded requests from representatives of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics to clarify the situation surrounding the use of the Bayraktar unmanned aerial vehicle during a meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG), Russian representative to the TCG Boris Gryzlov told reporters.
"One of the issues at the Contact Group meeting was a discussion of yesterday's publications of the Ukrainian military about the combat use of the Bayraktar UAV in Donbas [...]. Urgent requests from representatives of Donbas to clarify the situation and clearly confirm or deny the use of the UAV by Ukraine in violation of the Minsk Agreements and the agreements on the measures to strengthen the ceasefire were ignored by the Ukrainian delegation," Gryzlov said following the meeting.
At the same time, Gryzlov noted that at the beginning of the meeting, Ukrainian representatives first tried to avoid answering and then "confirmed the fact of the use of the UAV in Donbas and the existence of a corresponding order from the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces," but near the end of the meeting, "it emerged that Ukrainian Defense Minister Andriy Taran had denied in the media the fact of the combat use of the Bayraktar UAV."
The Russian envoy to the Contact Group called the meeting "one of the most tense and complicated in the entire period of our work" and noted that Ukraine is continuing to escalate the situation on the line of contact.