MOSCOW, January 27. /TASS/. The Russian side at the talks in Dubai drew attention of the U.S. representatives to Ukraine’s so-called law on reintegration, with which Kiev tries to legalize its unlawful actions in Donbass, Russia’s Presidential Aide Vladislav Surkov said after a meeting with the U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker.
"The Russian delegation also drew attention of the U.S. side to Ukraine’s so-called law on reintegration," Surkov said on Saturday. "By the time of the meeting, the law’s text was not published. But clearly, its objective is the belated legalization of the Kiev authorities’ unlawful actions during the conflict in southeast. For over three years Ukraine has been using illegally the armed forces against own citizens."
Kiev continues an illegal economic blockade, Surkov added.
"It limits freedom for movement and so forth. The law on reintegration enacts these illegal practices offering a legal base for them," he said. "Besides, we have stressed it is necessary to see the law does not contain provisions contradicting directly with the Minsk Complex of Measures. The U.S. representatives reacted adequately to the expressed concerns."
Donbass reintegration law
On January 18, Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada (parliament) passed a bill dubbed "On the special aspects of state policy aimed at ensuring Ukraine’s state sovereignty over the temporarily occupied areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk Regions," which had been submitted by President Pyotr Poroshenko and is known as the Donbass reintegration bill. The document labels the areas not controlled by Kiev as "temporarily occupied" and empowers the president with the right to use armed forces inside the country without the Rada’s consent. It also provides for setting up joint operation headquarters of the Ukrainian armed forces to control all military units and military-civil administration in the conflict zone. In addition, all references to the Minsk Agreements have been removed from the document.