On February 21, around 09.30 am, near the building of the Verkhovna Rada a rally, attended by 5000 people supporting complete economic blockade of the temporarily occupied areas of Donbas, started. The action was initiated by the representatives of the “Ukrainian Patriots Association – UKROP”. It was joined by the party representatives from different parts of Ukraine, volunteers, ATO veterans and mothers of the Ukrainian prisoners of war.
“All of us have gathered here with one simple requirement to the government – to stop trading with the occupants, liberate our captives and ensure that the trade with terrorists will be impossible. All economic calculations had to be done before. They should have debated about correlation with generating companies and predatory tariffs of the so-called “Rotterdam plus” formula. This is not about the economy, it’s about justice. You cannot deal with people who are destroying and killing you, and who are shooting at our soldiers every day,” told the Head of the Kyiv city organization of UKROP Dmytro Simansky to the journalists.
The demonstrators insist on immediate adoption of a bill on the status of the occupied territories, which will put an end to economic relations between Kyiv and the occupants. “In this situation we should just recognize these areas as occupied territories, because they are enemies, the invaders who have come to our land. I understand that there are our citizens, and we must defend them, but if we don’t start to treat the occupied territories in this way, the war will last permanently,” said the Head of the UKROP political council, MP Taras Batenko before the event started. The politician has also stressed that the party defends the idea of this bill together with the representatives of Batkivshchyna, People’s Front and Samopomich.
In addition, the participants of the rally demand to include immediately to the parliamentary agenda a draft resolution on the Temporary Investigation Commission for checking the legality of issuing permits for trade between Ukraine and uncontrolled areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions and consider it. According to Taras Batenko, during these three years of conflict over 97,000 permits for commercial operations with the occupants were issued. “We support a cancer that is growing, instead of stopping trade,” said the MP.
The event started with a minute of silence for the fallen heroes of the Heaven’s Hundred and ATO participants. The rally was attended by the MPs from UKROP, non-faction deputies and representatives of several factions.
