Ukrainian military refute reports on full control over eastern border with Russia

 Ukraine’s Council of National Security and Defense refuted the reports that the Ukrainian army had taken under full control the country’s eastern border with Russia, the council’s spokesman Volodymyr Chepovoy told a briefing on Friday.

“If the border was under our troops’ control, we would be the first to make this news public and it would be a victorious step and a clue to fulfilling the presidential plan,” he said. “It does not exist now, and we are simply telling you about the dynamics of taking our territory under control.”

At the same time, the press services of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People’s Republics (LPR) said that the reports of the Ukrainian army about “restoring control” over the eastern border with Russia do not reflect reality.

“I am not going to comment on the situation at the LPR border but these reports run counter to reality at the DPR border,” a DPR press service spokesman said. “It is another sample of stove-piping, necessary for covering a complete failure of the Ukrainian military in the LPR. Now they need just some victories.”

“Only one checkpoint out of three at the border between Ukraine and Russia is closed,” the LPR press service said. “Izvarino (border checkpoint) is open as our people have just come from there. Dolzhansky is in question, and it is unsafe there. As far as I know, Krasny Partizan is closed.”

Earlier, Verkhvovna Rada Speaker Oleksandr Turchynov reported the military regained control at the state border with Russia. Parliament-appointed Defense Minister Mykhailo Koval later confirmed this information.

On Thursday, June 19, the spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry Alexander Lukashevich said that Russia counts on Ukraine to abstain from the unilateral demarcation of the border.

“This news has been widely discussed in the mass media,” he said. “But the neighboring states should launch the process on a reciprocal basis as unilateral demarcation cannot be legally mandatory for the opposite side."