Makeyevka, Mar 23 - DAN. Nine Makeyevka-based companies have gone into receipership since 1 March, Kirovskiy district administration head Valentina Kharlashka said at a meeting with workers of a coke-producing enteprise on Thursday.

“Receivership is standard world practice, for example in case of bankruptcy, when the government applies this procedure in order to preserve workers’ rights,” Kharlashka said. “In our case, it was prompted by Ukraine’s full blockade of the Republic.”

Among the companies coming into DPR legal fold are such giants as Yasinovataya and Makeyevka coke plants and an affiliate of Enakievo steel mill. On Thursday, DPR receivership officials discussed current issues with workers of the largest companies in Makeyevka and Enakievo.

Some 60 personnel gathered in Makeyevka and 30 in Enakievo. DPR officials addressed the reasons behind the receivership and the reorientation to destinations in Russia. Makeyevka Coke Plant human resources deparmtent director Alexander Morozov supported DPR authorities’ actions.

“We remember our plant’s being on the brink of stopping, but thank God, we avoided that fate,” Morozov said adding that all personnel continued working and that coke production was ongoing. “Thanks to receivership, we’ll have raws and a sales market,” he added.

On 27 February, DPR and LPR heads Alexander Zakharchenko and Igor Plotnitskiy demanded that Kiev stop the blockade by 1 March. The demand was not met, and the Republics introduced receivership at 43 companies that had been operating under Ukrainian jurisdiction.

A new turn of Donbass economic blockade occurred in January. Former participants in the punitive operation blocked railway traffic on Kiev-controlled Gorskoye-Zolotoye stretch in LPR. They said the objective was to halt trade with the Republic. The blockade then extended to Svetlanovo station in vicinity of Pervomaisk, the railway stretch in Kiev-controlled Artyomovsk area (DPR axis) and Yasinovataya-Skotovataya stretch (DPR axis).

Hardline Ukrainian lawmakers supported the trade blockade which the radicals said would be indefinite.

Ukrainian president Petr Poroshenko later put in effect the decision by Ukraine’s National Security Service to impose full transport blockade on Donbass.*jk