Ukraine has fulfilled all of its obligations under the Minsk protocol and is doing everything so as not to leave residents of Donbas in trouble, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said.
“People see that these guys are simply armed bandits. They come, they take things away, they rob people, and they kill them. And they cannot even provide for the basic needs of the people,” he said in an interview with German television and radio station ARD, adding that residents of the country’s eastern regions more actively use protests, demanding that militants withdraw from their native land.
According to the presidential press service, Poroshenko noted that there was a lack of food, water and heating on militant-controlled territories, the banking system had been destroyed and there was no money. The head of state said that Ukraine, without getting a single kopeck, supplied gas and electricity to militant-held territory, the cost of which had already amounted to almost $700 million and added that Ukraine also supplied humanitarian aid – food and medicines.
Poroshenko noted that all international missions, including the OSCE, had officially confirmed that the violators of the Minsk agreements were militants who shell peaceful residential neighborhoods, international observers and do not allow bringing peace back to Donbas.
He also said that more than 600 Ukrainian servicemen and civilians, including women and children, remained in the basements of militants. In this regard, Poroshenko said that Ukraine insisted on the implementation of the agreements by all sides.
He said that the only possible way to resolve the situation in Donbas was peace, the political process, and elections.
“If the occupation forces left our territory, peace and quiet would have come to Ukraine in two or three weeks. Just as it happened on the liberated territories,” Poroshenko said.
