Shoigu announced the preparation by the American PMCs of a provocation with chemical weapons in the Donbass

 Private military companies (PMCs) of the United States are preparing a provocation with chemical components in eastern Ukraine, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said at a meeting of the department's board. According to the minister, there are more than 120 employees of American PMCs in the Donetsk region who are training Ukrainian special forces.

According to Mr. Shoigu, Americans work in the settlements of Avdiivka and Priazovskoye. "They equip firing positions in residential buildings and socially significant facilities, train Ukrainian special operations forces and radical armed groups for active hostilities," he said.

According to the Minister of Defense, the Ukrainian military continues shelling Donbass and the positions of the People's militia of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR), thereby provoking them. "Tanks with unidentified chemical components have been delivered to the cities of Avdiivka and Krasny Estuary to commit provocations," Sergei Shoigu claims.

In the LPR on December 17, they said that they had not recorded attacks from the Ukrainian military for two weeks. The shelling resumed a day later, one militia member was killed. The LPR also announced an increase in the number of Ukrainian snipers in the area of settlements controlled by Kiev, the preparation of provocations was not ruled out in the republic. Ukraine assured that Russia did not support the return of the regime of silence in the Donbass.