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MOSCOW / AP
Ukraine on Wednesday announced a transport blockade of rebel-held areas that is likely to cause serious economic disruption and could threaten a precarious cease-fire in the east of the country.
“It will be in place until the occupiers return stolen Ukrainian industry to Ukrainian jurisdiction,†Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko told the country’s national security council in Kiev, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported. Many economic links have been preserved between separatist-controlled areas that are dominated by heavy industry, particularly coal mining and metallurgy, and government-held Ukraine despite a three-year conflict.
But the new measures appeared to amount to a full-blown trade ban. All rail and road connections with the rebel-controlled mini-states will be cut from on Wednesday, National Security and Defense Council head Oleksander Turchynov told reporters, the Tass news agency reported. The only exception to the new blockade will be for humanitarian deliveries by Ukrainian organizations, the United Nations and the Red Cross. The move is an apparent U-turn by Poroshenko’s government, which had previously criticized blockades on rebel-held areas imposed by nationalist activists, arguing that they hurt ordinary Ukrainians.