Ukraine imposes passport controls – Peninsula On
KYIV: Ukraine announced passport controls around pro-Russian separatist territories yesterday, as heavy artillery fire erupted in rebel-held Donetsk and Russia accused its neighbour of “crudely” violating the ceasefire.
Ukraine’s border guards service said anyone crossing in or out of rebel areas will now have to present a passport. Foreigners will “be sent to filtration points to determine the purpose of their visit” and will have “to show a passport or the required visa,” a statement said.
The rule was explained as a security measure to seal off the separatist region in the east, where artillery fire violated a tattered ceasefire deal on multiple occasions early yesterday.
However, the passport regime will create a de facto internal border, underscoring the Russian-backed guerrillas’ success in carving out two self-declared statelets centred on Donetsk and Lugansk. Already, Ukraine has lost control of its real border with Russia, which is in the hands of separatist guerrillas and Russian troops.
In another sign that Ukraine’s government has given up regaining control of the east anytime soon, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said that subsidies and social payments, including pensions, would be halted to rebel-controled areas.
The developments in Kyiv came against a background of fierce shelling in Donetsk and other incidents that raised fears of a total breakdown in a peace plan signed in September.
The Ukrainian government’s Western allies have expressed growing concern over the situation and the EU foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said a meeting would take place in 10 days to discuss the future of sanctions imposed on Russia.
“We have to see clearly what is happening on the ground from now until then,” she said. Almost non-stop artillery fire rained down around the outskirts of Donetsk, where a shell had killed two teenagers late on Wednesday while they were playing football.
Russia’s investigative committee said it had opened a criminal case against Ukrainian forces over the incident, while Ukraine’s military said a case had been opened against the separatists.
A spokesman for the military said that in the latest shelling across the conflict zone three Ukrainian servicemen were killed, as well as nine others wounded earlier. The separatists rarely release casualty figures.
He also repeated accusations that “Russian units and mercenaries” continued to cross into Ukraine. Russian denies directly aiding the rebels, although Russia soldiers and equipment have been frequently spotted by journalists in the conflict zone.
In a reflection of growing jitters, there were multiple rumours — including a claim by a rebel commander — of an assault by Ukrainian tanks against separatists in Yasynuvata, a small town near Donetsk. However, the reports were false. In Moscow, the foreign ministry blamed Kyiv for the crumbling truce, saying “it is obvious today that these agreements have been crudely violated by the Ukrainian side”.
Officials said the passport regime will apply to the area of what the government calls the “anti-terrorist operation,” but did not specify the exact outlines of the zone. Sergiy Astakhov, an aide to the border guard chief, said the measure did not mean Kyiv was giving up on recovering the separatist area. “This is Ukrainian territory, but given that militants are temporarily controlling it, we have to carry out the necessary checks,” Astakhov said.
“It is also connected with the fact that armed Russians are freely entering these territories through checkpoints on the Ukrainian-Russian frontier that are controlled by militants. We have to take measures so that they cannot go beyond the zone of the anti-terrorist operation,” he said.
The measure dovetailed with Yatsenyuk’s announcement of the complete severing of subsidies to rebel-held areas, including pensions, though not heating gas and electricity. “As soon as the terrorists clear out of there and we get back the territory, then we will pay every person the welfare payments they have the right to,” he said. “To pay today is to directly finance terrorism,” he said.
Those cuts will translate into a massive reduction in funds going to regions ruled by the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic, two rebel entities which held controversial leadership elections last Sunday. AFP