Donetsk, Mar 15 – DAN. DPR shall not lift the ban on exports of goods and feedstock to Kiev-controlled territories after Ukrainian authorities imposed full transport blockade on the Republics, said DPR Head Alexander Zakharchenko.
"The decision of Poroshenko and of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (SNBO) is a result of internal power struggle going on in Kiev, of which Poroshenko is the apparent looser."
"We have imposed the ban on exports of goods and feedstock to Kiev-controlled territories. We shall not lift this ban. We are not going to do it until Kiev fulfills its obligations under the Minsk Agreements. First of all it is about the political agenda," Zakharchenko said in the commentary sent to DAN.
Earlier DPR envoy to Minsk negotiations Denis Pushilin said Kiev's decision on the blockade was completely at odds with Minsk-2 and called it a legalization at the highest state level of radicals' actions.
On March 15 Poroshenko's website published a statement suggesting that National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine imposes full transport blockade on DPR and LPR in effect until Republican authorities lift the receivership introduced on Ukrainian enterprises in Donbass.
The SNBO's secretary Alexander Turchinov said that all the roads connecting Donbass and Ukraine shall be blocked today at 1 p.m. Kiev time (2 p.m. Donetsk time) by police and National Guard.
The new round of economic blockade of Donbass started in January 2017. Former participants of the offensive blocked railroad between Gorskoye and Zolotoye (LPR territory). The radicals said the aim was to interrupt trade with LPR. Later they blocked Svetlanovo station in vicinity of Pervomaisk, the railroad tracks in the area of occupied Artyemovsk (DPR) and Yasinovataya-Skotovataya stretch.
DPR and LPR heads urged Kiev to stop transport blockade by March, 1, and after Kiev failed to do so introduced receivership onenterprises operating under Ukrainian jurisdiction. Among the Ukrainian companies operating in Donbass are such industrial giants as Enakiyevo Steel Plant and its Makeyebka branch, Khartsyzsk Pipe Plant, Yasinovsky Coking Chemistry Plant, Dokuchaevsk Flux-Dolomite Complex, Concern Stirol, DTEK enterprises, DonetskStal Steel Plant, Komsomolets Donbassa mine, Zasyadko mine, Zuivskaya thermal power station.
Ukrainian Rada extremists supported the “trade blockade, while radicals said the drive shall be permanent.
On 16 December, Ukraine National Security and Defence Council Secretary Alexander Turchinov called for tougher economic blockade against the Donbass Republics. Turchinov, a key figure behind Donbass bloodbath, believes that the ban on movements of goods and cargoes to LPR and DPR will enable Kiev to faster “liberate” the territories it does not control.
On November 15 2014, Ukrainian President Petr Poroshenko signed the decree halting the payment of pensions and allowances in the conflict zone.*ot