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UK Activists Picket Ukrainian Embassy on Anniversary of Donbass Operation

© AP Photo / Evgeniy MaloletkaUkrainian servicemen ride atop an armored vehicle with a Ukrainian flag, on the outskirts of Donetsk, Ukraine
Ukrainian servicemen ride atop an armored vehicle with a Ukrainian flag, on the outskirts of Donetsk, Ukraine - Sputnik International
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LONDON (Sputnik) - UK activists supporting the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk gathered outside Ukraine's embassy in London on Saturday, which marked the fourth anniversary of the start of Kiev's offensive on its breakaway regions, a Sputnik correspondent reported from the scene.

"This is a part of a series of protests that we have supported to show our solidarity with the people of Donetsk and Luhansk, and to condemn the Kiev regime and the role of the British government in supporting that regime," Andy Brooks, the general secretary of the New Communist Party of Britain, told Sputnik.

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The Minsk agreements have frozen the Ukraine conflict to a certain degree, although the fighting has never stopped in fact, he noted.

"So we participate in events like this to support the people of the Donbass and to maintain the call for peace and for a democratic settlement of the crisis in Ukraine," Brooks added.

Four years ago, the NATO powers were creating a climate of hatred against Russia over the Crimean issue and the conflict in eastern Ukraine, Brooks continued.

"Now they are still doing that over the Skripals and a whole host of other issues, but to a certain degree they turned their focus on other aspects of the Russian bogey… although what we saw in Syria yesterday was gunboat diplomacy, so the danger of a greater conflagration exists," he concluded.

The conflict in Donbas started on April 14, 2014, when Ukrainian authorities launched a military operation against the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics that refused to recognize the new government in Kiev, which came to power after what they considered to be a coup.

In February 2015, the warring parties signed the Minsk peace accords to end the fighting in the region, but the situation remains tense, with both parties accusing each other of ceasefire violations.

On Friday, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said that the "anti-terrorist operation" in Donbas will end on April 30, adding that it would mean just the change of the operation's format.

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