Russia calls for lifting of east Ukraine blockade
BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) ” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has called for immediate lifting of an economic blockade of pro-Russian rebel-held eastern Ukraine.
Lavrov, speaking at an Organization for Security and Cooperation meeting on Thursday, said that the blockade by the Kyiv government “cannot be justified by anything.”
Ukraine clamped down on the rebel-held parts of the Donetsk region and the neighboring separatist Luhansk region with the blockade, including freezing of business contacts.
The Kyiv government has had no control over parts of eastern Ukraine since pro-Russian separatist rebels began fighting government forces in April 2014.
An armistice signed in the Belarus capital Minsk in February has regularly been violated.
Lavrov says Moscow is “convinced that the prospects for peaceful resolution of the conflict in Ukraine are realistic and have no alternative.”
AP
This story has been automatically published from the Associated Press wire which uses US spellings