No order was issued to liberate Donbass militarily

The Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Alexei Danilov announced that the Ukrainian authorities “did not issue any orders to liberate the Donetsk and Lugansk regions in the east of the country by military means.” “It is alleged that our soldiers intend to attack Donetsk and Lugansk for the purpose of liberating our lands. I can assure that this does not correspond to reality, and no orders have been issued to liberate our lands by force,” he noted.

“We realize that if the decision is taken to liberate these lands, there will be a large number of casualties among the civilian population. This cannot be the case in our country,” he told a news conference. The Secretary of the Ukrainian Security Council accused Russia of publishing information regarding the attack to “provoke” the Ukrainian military. He stressed that the Ukrainian forces “can only open fire if there is a danger to the lives of our soldiers.”

The Ukrainian presidency indicated, earlier, that “Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is monitoring the situation and will take in the coming hours a final decision on participation in the Munich conference.” And he had declared that “Ukraine does not need foreign allied soldiers on its territory,” according to what was reported by the “Agence France Presse”.