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New transport checkpoint opens at contact line in east Ukraine

In Ukraine's war-torn Donetsk and Lugansk regions in total, 20,000 people cross the contact line every day

© Stanislav Krasilnikov/TASS

KIEV, March 31. /TASS/. New transport checkpoint Zolotoye has opened in Donbass on the contact line between the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) and Kiev-controlled part of the Lugansk region, press secretary of the Ukrainian envoy to the Contact Group Dari Olifer said on Thursday.

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"The first transport checkpoint in the Lugansk Region has been opened in Zolotoye this year. The corridor Lisichansk-Gorskoye-Zolotoye-Pervomaysk-Stakhanov has been adopted by Ukrainian state agencies authorized to resolve this issue, and coordinated in the framework of the Trilateral Contact Group," Olifer wrote on her Facebook page.

She added that the checkpoint is equipped with pedestrian crossings, WC and everything else necessary for effective work of border guards and officers of Ukrainian State Emergency Service. "In Donetsk and Lugansk regions in total, 20,000 people cross the contact line every day," Olifer said.

A Lugansk Inform Center correspondent at the site confirmed that the checkpoint has started working.

Until now, there has been only one - pedestrian - checkpoint in the Lugansk region near Stanitsa Luganskaya. The Contact Group on Ukrainian settlement repeatedly discussed the necessity of opening a transport checkpoint. On January 27 an agreement was reached to open the first transport checkpoint in the Lugansk region near the settlement of Zolotoye. However, the opening of the checkpoint was postponed several times because of multiple violations of ceasefire regime in Donbass.

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