Defence Minister: 7,000 Russian servicemen remain in east Ukraine

According to Poltorak, Russia is still deploying its servicemen in eastern Ukraine with a well-functioning mechanism of rotation. "Just over 7,000 Russian soldiers are there now. They are being rotated constantly," he said. Poltorak predicted that pro-Russian separatists in the Donbas region would attack Ukrainian positions, provoking a return fire in order to present Kyiv as a violator of the Minsk Agreements. At the same time, according to his evaluation, the ability of pro-Russian militants to launch a major offensive at the current stage is "restricted."