Ukrainian Security Service explains why LPR representatives who crossed into Ukraine over the bridge in Stanytsia Luhanska were not arrested
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said that arresting Vladislav Deynego and Olga Koptseva, members of the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) who crossed the bridge in Stanytsia Luhanska, would have constituted grounds for accusing Ukraine of breaking the Minsk Agreements.
“The appearance of ‘parliamentarians’ of the quasi-republics near the Stanytsia Luhanska checkpoint is deliberate, conscious and targeted provocation from the terrorists and their Russian supervisors. Arresting Koptseva and Deynego in the neutral zone would have been grounds for the occupants to claim that Ukraine had broken the Minsk Agreements and supposedly violated the truce,” the SBU said in a Facebook post.
At the same time, the SBU confirmed that Deynego and Koptseva are both facing charges for infringing the state sovereignty, constitutional order and territorial integrity of Ukraine.
The SBU promised that they would be brought to justice, but at a later time.
On 6 August, Deynego and Koptseva, who represent the militants at the Minsk peace talks, crossed the demarcation line. Journalists from the Kanal 5 TV station witnessed the two crossing the bridge with Yuriy Zolkin, head of the regional administration of Stanytsia Luhanska.
Deynego claimed that, according to the Minsk Agreements, Stanytsia Luhanska and the village of Schastia should be controlled by the LPR.