The right-wingers insist that one of the objectives is to stop the inflow
of contraband allegedly getting into Ukrainian territory from Lugansk and
Donetsk.
KIEV, January 26. /TASS/. Ukrainian radicals have made public their
plans to block indefinitely all the railways connecting the self-proclaimed
unrecognized Donetsk and Lugansk republics of eastern Ukraine with the parts of
the country loyal to the Kiev government, Vladimir Parasyuk, a deputy of the
Verkhovna Rada said on Thursday.
"Mobile staffs will be set up and all the railways will be blocked," he told Ukraina 112 channel. "The action will last more than just one or two days - it will be indefinite."
"Mobile staffs will be set up and all the railways will be blocked," he told Ukraina 112 channel. "The action will last more than just one or two days - it will be indefinite."
The
right-wingers insist that one of the objectives of their effort is to stop the
inflow of contraband allegedly getting into Ukrainian territory from the
Lugansk and Donetsk republics.
To
facilitate an expansion of the zone of blockade, a number of deputies of the
Rada and former militants from the so-called volunteer battalions who had
previously taken part in the government-sponsored ‘antiterrorist operation’ in
eastern Ukraine were arriving in the area to throw their shoulder into the
effort.
On
Wednesday, militants from the so-called volunteer battalions blocked the
traffic of cargo trains at the Lugansk-Lisichansk-Popasnaya line, by which coal
is supplied to the Lugansk thermoelectric plant.
The action
affected twelve freight trains with a total of more than 700 coaches.
In the
meantime, Georgy Tuka, a deputy minister for what Kiev calls ‘the temporarily
occupied territories’ said the blockade might endanger supplies of electricity
to the parts of the Lugansk region under Kiev’s control, as supplies of coal to
the Lugansk thermoelectric plant located in the self-proclaimed Lugansk
People’s Republic had been disrupted.
Yuri
Garbuz, the head of the military/civilian administration of the Lugansk region,
issued a warning that the blocking of railways in the Lugansk region might
result in blackouts not only there but also put out of operation the thermal
power plants in central and western Urkaine.
"The
action undertaken by some deputies (of the Verkhovna Rada) and former fighters
of the Donbass and Aidar volunteer battalions poses risks for the country’s
energy security," he wrote in Facebook.
He said the
radicals had blocked the traffic of trains carrying coal across the line of
contact in Donbass to replenish reserves at the power plants belonging to the
government.
"The
protesting activists blocked empty coaches meant for transportation of coal to
the territories under Ukrainian control," Garbuz wrote. "If supplies
of coal don’t resume, thermal power plants in central and western Ukraine will
be affected."
On the face
of it, authorities in the districts controlled by the Kiev government kept
silent and displayed full inaction on Thursday.
One of the
far-right radicals, Semen Semenchenko who represents Samopomich (Self-Assistance)
caucus in the Rada, claimed local police forces, SBU security service officers,
and the military including the border guards were all supporting the blockade.
Tatiana Pogukai, a spokeswoman for the pro-Kiev police in the Lugansk region
went as far as to describe the blockade as a public action.
Nonetheless,
the press secretary of the Lugansk regional Prosecutor’s Office, Anna Zykova
said the prosecutors had instituted a criminal case over the blocking of
traffic at the railway. She admitted, however, no reports on the ‘action’ had
come from the Interior agencies.
Ukrainian
authorities launched the economic blockade of Donbass on November 15, 2014,
when President Pyotr Poroshenko signed an executive order on stopping the
payments of social benefits including pensions in the zone of armed conflict in
eastern Ukraine.
The ban
affected the servicing of private and corporate bank accounts, among other
things. Authorities in the self-proclaimed republics called the decree ‘an act
on genocide and impoverishment of the people’.
As of
January 2015, the Kiev authorities imposed restrictions on commodity supplies
to the districts outside of their control and stopped them altogether later on,
simultaneously stipulating the rules for trips across the line of conflict.
A number of
deputies in Kiev have more than once called for maintaining the blockade of
eastern Ukrainian territories outside the government’s control but to fence
them off in the literal sense of the word and to build a mighty security belt
around them.
Source:
ITAR-TASS 27-01-2017
