Interfax: Separatist leader in Ukraine’s Donetsk says “preparing for war”

(Interfax – October 29, 2014) Work on agreeing a new dividing line between militia forces and the Ukrainian army has been suspended on Kiev’s initiative, and now “we are preparing for war”, Oleksandr (Aleksandr) Zakharchenko, prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk people’s republic (DPR) has said, as reported by privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax on 29 October.

“Ukraine has announced its renunciation of signatures on the agreement on the dividing line. We are preparing for war,” Zakharchenko was quoted as saying on a trip to Makiyivka.

Earlier, DPR first deputy prime minister Andriy Purhin (Andrey Purgin) said that the Ukrainian authorities had not fulfilled its obligations on the separation of the conflicting sides.

“A dividing line between the opposing sides was agreed, but Kiev renounced the signature of its representative Gen [Yuriy] Dumanskyy under the relevant document without explaining why,” Purhin said.

‘The [Ukrainian] National Guard constantly violates the ceasefire, launches artillery strikes on residential quarters, and civilians are dying every day,” he said.