MOSCOW, October 21. /TASS/. The authorities of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) have blocked over 50 million rubles ($794,000) on accounts of Ukrainian oligarch Sergey Kurchenko, DPR leader Alexander Zakharchenko said Wednesday.
"As of today, thanks to a number of operative and manhunt activities, the accounts of his enterprises - Donetskoblgaz and some affiliated ones - have been blocked," the Donetsk News Agency quoted Zakharchenko as saying.
Earlier, Zakharchenko imposed personal sanctions against Kurchenko, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko as well as oligarchs Igor Kolomoisky and Boris Lozhkin. The sanctions were imposed over the activity of these persons and structures they control to finance military aggression in Donbas and destabilization of the social and economic situation in the DPR.
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The persons on the sanctions list and affiliated persons are banned from acquiring property or carrying out financial operations in the DPR.
Ukrainian troops have been engaged in fierce fighting with local militias during Kiev’s punitive operation, underway since mid-April 2014, against the breakaway territories - the Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics constituting parts of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine.
Massive shelling of residential neighborhoods, including with the use of aviation, has killed thousands and led to a humanitarian disaster in the area.
Kiev has regularly violated the ceasefire regime imposed as part of the Package of Measures on implementation of the September 2014 Minsk Agreements.
The Package (Minsk-2) was signed on February 12, 2015 in the Belarusian capital Minsk by participants of the Contact Group on settlement in Donbass.
The Package, earlier agreed with the leaders of the Normandy Four (Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine) envisioned an overwhelming cessation of fire and withdrawal of heavy armaments to create a security area in the region at least 50 kilometers wide.