DONETSK, November 17. /TASS/. The economic blockade imposed by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko against the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) will have a negative effect on Ukraine itself, the republic’s Tax Minister Alexander Timofeyev told TASS.
“If they close the last Ukrainian bank working here, Oshchadbank, it means that the last enterprises in the republic that have paid taxes to Kiev cannot do it any longer. According to my data, 4.8 billion hryvnia (over $309 million) were transferred from the DPR to Ukraine over the past three months. So it is not known for whom it is worse,” Timofeyev said.
Kiev’s economic sanctions will create problems for DPR residents, but the republic’s authorities are ready to solve them, he said. “We have almost set up our own banking system and are ready for an economic blockade Ukraine threatens to impose against us,” the minister said.
In compliance with the presidential decree of November 15, the Ukrainian government must stop operation of state companies and organizations in some areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and organize evacuation of workers and withdrawal of property and documentation.
The president ordered to work out special regulations to take stock of energy supplies to some Donbass territories and submit a draft law to the Ukrainian parliament within a month to change the budget code on relations between the state budget and local budgets.
Authorities in the Luhansk and Donetsk republics have said the decree of Poroshenko in fact is an act of genocide and devastation against people.