"We haven’t been seeing cases of the use of heavy weapons, artillery and Grad multiple rocket launchers in the conflict zone in the east of Ukraine," he said.
"In addition, the illegal armed groups hold organizational and mobilization activities in order to create a unified command over individual groups and to man teams according to Russian standards."
"The brigades will be supplemented with so-called volunteers from the Russian Federation," Lysenko said.
As UNIAN reported earlier, Russia annexed the Ukrainian territory of Crimea in March after invading the peninsula with its troops, and then began to destabilize the situation in the Donbas. Later, the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics were created with the direct participation of Russian special services and the support of Russian army in the Donbas.
Russia also supplies weapons to the insurgents of the DPR and LPR and sends its mercenaries and regular troops to Donbas.
As reported earlier, the first ceasefire agreement was reached at a meeting of the contact group on September 5. The next meeting of the trilateral contact group on the resolution of the situation in Donbas took place on September 19 in Minsk during which the parties signed a ceasefire memorandum.
However, the insurgents and Russian troops continued carrying out attacks on the civilian population and Ukrainian forces in the east of Ukraine.
On December 9, a "Day of Silence" was declared in the conflict zone, but the militants violated the ceasefire, although they reduced the intensity of their attacks.
On Friday the press center of Ukraine’s Anti-Terrorist Operation stated that the militants in the Donbas had attacked Ukrainian positions six times in the last day, injuring two civilians.
