America blamed Russia for fighting in Donbas

The United States is concerned about resumption of hostilities in the east of Ukraine. This was stated at a briefing by State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf.

"Russia bears direct responsibility for preventing these attacks and for observing the truce regime," Reuters quotes.

Earlier, a similar statement was made by Kiev. Representatives of the Ukrainian side of the Joint Center for Control and Coordination said that they demanded that Russia influence the militia to stop firing. Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk said that “before the G7 summit, Russia once again violated the Minsk agreements”, giving the militia “instructions to launch a military operation”.

On Wednesday night, shelling resumed in Marinka (Donetsk region). The parties accuse each other of the use of heavy weapons. The authorities of the self-proclaimed DPR declared 14 militiamen and five civilians killed during the day. Still 24 civilians were injured, 86 people were injured among militia fighters. According to Kiev, during the day, in the battles of Marinka, three servicemen were killed, another 31 was wounded.

In the afternoon of June 3, the Minister of Defense of Ukraine Stepan Poltorak stated that the assault on Marinka had been stopped. According to him, they managed to do this with 15: 00, after 12 hours of fighting. The Deputy Commander of the Corps of the Defense Ministry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, Eduard Basurin, said that the militants are not leading any offensive.

The Kremlin has commented on the aggravated situation in the Donbass. A spokesman for the Russian president, Dmitry Peskov, called the provocative actions of the Ukrainian security forces. “Moscow is carefully observing and experiencing extreme concern over provocative actions by the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” said Peskov. He added that in the Kremlin "deeply concerned about the deaths of people and children."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called the situation escalated in the Donbass "the most acute issue." He did not give an assessment of who was to blame for the resumption of the fighting, adding only that "for some reason, civilians are dying only in the territory controlled by the militias." “From the side controlled by the Ukrainian security forces, only soldiers are killed,” Lavrov said.