A Ukrainian drone that was on a reconnaissance mission near the village of Schastye in the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) was downed by LPR militias, Ivan Filiponenko, a spokesman for the LPR’s defense ministry, said on Sunday.

Axar.az reports citing TASS.

According to Filiponenko, Ukrainian troops keep on openly violating the Minsk agreements using drone along the entire contact line. "Thus, an unmanned aerial vehicle of the Ukrainian army’s 25th airborne brigade was spotted on May 23. The drone was on a reconnaissance mission over the positions of LPR’s militias in the settlement of Schastye," LuganskInformCenter quoted him as saying.

"Thanks to the skillful actions of the LPR’s air defense units, the enemy drone was damaged and fell down in a territory controlled by Ukrainian troops," he added.

Under the agreements reached at the Minsk talks of the Contact Group, only monitors of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission are allowed to use unmanned aerial vehicles in the areas adjacent to the contact line in Donbass. However, according to the Lugansk and Donetsk republics, Ukrainian troops regularly use drones for reconnaissance and fire adjustment purposes in violation of the agreements.