DONETSK, December 26. /TASS/. Enterprises in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) in the south-east of Ukraine have been nationalised — these are the facilities that had been in Ukraine’s state ownership, DPR head Alexander Zakharchenko told the Donetsk news agency on Friday. “Where the Ukrainian state property was partial, DPR will act as a business partner,” Zakharchenko said.

It took DPR exactly five months to transfer Ukraine’s state property in the territory of the Donetsk region under the republic’s jurisdiction. In July, the DPR government unanimously voted for the adoption of a corresponding resolution, admitting that “from this time on all takeovers of state property shall be regarded illegal.”

Zakharchenko also said that “a very cautious attitude should be taken” to the private assets’ nationalization and that “each case should be attentively studied.”

The DPR leadership for the first time announced the future nationalization process in May. Head of the presidium of the Supreme Council (parliament) of DPR Denis Pushilin said at a briefing then that “in connection with the regional oligarchs’ unwillingness to pay taxes to the DPR budget the decision to launch the nationalization process was made.” And in late May the republic’s authorities interrupted all negotiations with the regional oligarch Rinat Akhmetov, a major owner of Ukrainian enterprises in the southeast of the country. This was motivated by the businessman’s refusal to pay taxes to the DPR budget and his calls on the workers of his companies to go on strike. Akhmetov, owner of the System Capital Management company, called on his workers to come out on a protest against the actions of the DPR. Pushilin then stated that people of the DPR receive threats of being made redundant if they do not take part in pro-Ukrainian protests.

“Now we are considering the following as one of the options. All enterprises that are and were Ukrainian property will now be put under DPR control. Enterprises belonging or previously owned by oligarchs who refuse to co-operate with the DPR and to pay their taxes here, who continue paying them to Ukraine, will be nationalised,” Pushilin said then. “Those enterprises who clearly stated that the DPR is unacceptable to them — those are Rinat Akhmetov’s enterprises. Naturally, if they do not start co-operating closely with the DPR, then we have no other choice,” he added.