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Donbass gathering signatures for petition on Kiev’s sabotage of Minsk deal

Donbass initiates a petition to the international organizations with the call to stop the genocide of Donbass people by the Ukrainian authorities, Donbass militia leader says

© ITAR-TASS/Zurab Dzhavakhadze

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Petition for free carrying of arms gathers 25,000 signatures in Ukraine

MOSCOW, June 1. /TASS/. Authorities and public organizations of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics have started collecting signatures for a petition to the UN Security Council and international community calling to exert pressure on Kiev over its reluctance to implement the Minsk agreements.

"The public of Donbass initiates a petition to the international organizations with the call to stop the genocide of Donbass people by the Ukrainian authorities and halt the punitive operation known as ATO [anti-terrorist operation]," says the statement of DPR leader Alexander Zakharchenko posted on the website of the Donetsk News Agency.

"We launch the process of collecting signatures and will show the whole world that millions of our fellow citizens wait for peace and the end of nightmare that has been continuing due to Kiev’s fault for two years already," it says.

The DPR leader has drawn attention to the continuing ceasefire violations by Kiev forces, the refusal to carry out amnesty and delay of the prisoner swap on the "all for all" basis envisaged by the Minsk deal signed by the leaders of Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine in February 2015.

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"After that [petition] neither country of the world will be able to turn the blind eye to the lawlessness happening on our land. No propaganda machine will be able to stand against us," Zakharchenko stressed.

The Lugansk People’s Republic has called to "launch an offensive on the diplomatic front."

"Taking into consideration the judicial impeccability of our position, we turn to the supreme international body - the United Nations Security Council - asking to make [Ukrainian President Pyotr] Poroshenko meet his Minsk commitments," LPR leader Igor Plotnitsky said in a statement posted on the LuganskInformCenter’s website.

Plotnitsky said each citizen of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic should sign the petition and ordered the republic’s public movements to arrange a convenient procedure of collecting signatures.

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