Ukraine’s parliament canceled fines for residents of the occupied Donbas who enter Ukraine through Russia instead of official front line checkpoints. Lawmakers approved the bill in the final reading on June 29.
Fines will be waived for as long as the checkpoints between government-controlled and Russian-occupied parts of the Donbas are not operating, according to the website of the Verkhovna Rada.
By law, residents of occupied Donbas are required to use official checkpoints if they want to cross into Ukraine-controlled areas. Crossing Ukraine’s eastern border with Russia is forbidden since the government does not control it. Fines for unauthorized crossings range from Hr 1,700 to 5,100.
However, five out of seven checkpoints have been closed for over a year, making it almost impossible to get to the rest of Ukraine. Many people started traveling through Russia.
Both sides closed the checkpoints in March 2020 to curb the spread of coronavirus. In November, Ukraine reopened them. However, the Russian-backed forces have kept the checkpoints closed from their side, using the pandemic as an excuse.
Read more: Kremlin uses pandemic to force Russian citizenship on Ukrainians in occupied Donbas
Only two checkpoints remain open in both directions, Stanytsia Luhanska in Luhansk Oblast and Novotroitske in Donetsk Oblast. Both experience frequent disruptions.
For months, human rights organizations have demanded for parliament to lift the fines, which they said were unfair to the residents of the occupied Donbas. Nonprofit Eastern Human Rights Group has filed hundreds of lawsuits challenging these fines.
The bill was finally drafted in April. It took parliament a few months to give it final approval.
The fine is waived if a traveler can prove that they broke the rules for humanitarian reasons like traveling to reunite with family, study or return home.
Actually proving that could be problematic.
“The fines could continue as no all the residents of the occupied territories of the Donbas could be able to documentarily prove their humanitarian purposes (of the visit),” Eastern Human Rights Group said on Facebook.
