Donbas blockade organizers plan to block railway line to Russia
Yehor Soboliev and Semen Semenchenko, deputies of the Verkhovna Rada from the Samopomich party, went to Konotop on Saturday. Judging by their communication on Facebook, they are preparing to block the railway line to this cross-border station.
“Only today, at least three hundred train cars came over from Russia with liquid gas, fertilizers and coal. The local railway workers are not allowed to show us documents about the contents of the closed wagons and the destination stations. Veterans of the war for independence have started to equip an observation post,” Soboliev wrote.
His colleague Semenchenko announced explicitly that a blockade is being prepared. “Your [president Petro Poroshenko’s] servants said on TV that it’s unrealistic to block the freight traffic across 400 km of the uncontrolled border with the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Veterans of the war for independence have blocked them for two weeks. Now it’s time for your personal trade with Putin and Russia itself,” he said.
In January 2017, public activists led by several MPs organized a so-called trade blockade of the Donbas regions not controlled by Ukraine. So far, participants in the blockade have blocked three railway lines (near the Svetlanovo station in the Luhansk region, near Bakhmut in the Donetsk region and near the Kryvyi Torets station in the Donetsk region). Furthermore, on the motorways near the town of Zolote in the Luhansk region and Novotroitsk in the Donetsk region, posts have been set up which do not block movement, but rather perform “control and monitoring functions”.