Rebel leaders urge halt to railway blockade of Donbas

The leaders of independence-seeking insurgents in eastern Ukraine on Monday urged Ukrainian government to find a way to put an end to the railway blockade in conflicting region of Donbas.

In a joint statement published on the insurgent-run Lugansk information center, Alexander Zakharchenko and Igor Plotnytsky, the two rebel leaders, described the blockade as a "violation of the spirit of the Minsk agreements."

The blockade of the Donbas, the rebel-held industrial region in eastern Ukraine, has disrupted the work of industrial enterprises and affected ordinary people's life in the area, the statement said.

If the blockade is not lifted before March 1, insurgents will take control of the government-run enterprises working in the Donbas region and stop all the supplies of coal to the Kiev-controlled territory, it said.

The Ukrainian government has not commented on the statement yet.

In late January, a group of activists blocked the movement of trains, transporting coal and other raw products from the rebel-held area to the government-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine.

The protesters claimed that the trade between Kiev and insurgents is illegal at the time when the two sides are involved in the military conflict.

The Ukrainian government has repeatedly called on the activists to stop the blockade, but it had not taken concrete actions to release the railway line. Endit