Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council on March 15 banned trade with Russian-occupied areas in the Donbas.
The council also instructed the National Bank of Ukraine to submit proposals on introducing sanctions against Russian banks.
“The authorities have heard criticism and society’s concerns,” President Petro Poroshenko said at a meeting of the council.
The decision is seen as a reaction to the blockade of trade with Russian-occupied territories by activists, which started in late January. A police crackdown on blockade activists on March 13 triggered nationwide protests, with some activists entering regional administrations in Western Ukraine.
On March 14, blockade activists, including lawmaker Volodymyr Parasiuk, clashed with police near Slovyansk, a Donetsk Oblast city of 114,000 people more than 500 kilometers southeast of Kyiv, on their way to blockade outposts.
Poroshenko said that the ban would be in force until Kremlin-backed separatists return to Ukraine the dozens of businesses that they seized in response to the blockade. He added that only international and Ukrainian humanitarian aid would be exempt from the ban.
Despite prohibiting trade with Kremlin-held areas, Poroshenko harshly lashed out at the organizers of the blockade, including the Samopomich Party, and blockade activists. He said that activists carrying weapons would be arrested and promised to make the blockade’s organizers and supporters, including the Samopomich and Batkyvshchyna parties, reimburse the losses caused by the blockade.
He also criticized regional councils for supporting the blockade.
“In Ukraine several political forces aim to get rid of a part of the Donbas and force several millions of Ukrainians into Russia’s grip,” he said. “…Thanks to the common efforts of the blockade activists and (Kremlin-backed) terrorists, Ukraine has lost its businesses.”
Poroshenko claimed that Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovy, Samopomich’s leader, was aiming to distract attention from Lviv’s failure to dispose of garbage by organizing the blockade.
Sadovy and his supporters have accused the central authorities of thwarting and blocking Lviv’s efforts to dispose of its garbage.
Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko, a Poroshenko loyalist, said on March 14 that Sadovy could be charged and suspended as part of a negligence case into garbage disposal in Lviv. Sadovy’s supporters see the case as a political vendetta for his opposition to Poroshenko.
Lutsenko also said on March 15 that Parasiuk, a lawmaker and blockade activist, could be stripped of immunity and prosecuted for allegedly assaulting National Guards.
Poroshenko also spoke out against the law formalizing the status of part of the Donbas as “occupied territories” – a key demand by blockade activists. He argued that the law on the occupied territories would disrupt Minsk negotiations and lead to the lifting of sanctions against Russia.
Instead, he proposed submitting a bill on the renewal of Ukraine’s territorial integrity. He did not elaborate, however.
