UNITED NATIONS, 11 March. /TASS/. Ukraine’s female parliamentarians urged on Tuesday tougher sanctions against Russia as well as military assistance to Kiev, as they arrived in New York to participate in a session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women.
Four female parliamentarians explained this by saying Minsk agreements were not implemented, while Russia was allegedly building up military presence at the Ukrainian borders.
"We don’t see a ceasefire [point one in the Minsk agreements], but instead we see that Russia is building up military might, increases presence along the border line," said Mariya Ionova from the Petro Poroshenko bloc.
"That is why we ask the world to increase sanctions, give us weapons as we must fight for our independence," she said.
The female deputies also pointed to problems with humanitarian supplies to the militia-held regions, noting that "Russian convoys don’t have problems with getting there as a rule".
When asked to comment on Kiev’s refusal to pay pensions and social benefits to residents of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, they said all the money was being "stored".
"The government will pay it as soon as there will be access to these regions or when the people will move to the territory controlled by the government and register as internally displaced persons," Ionova said.
A meeting with parliamentarians from Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada was announced in the United Nations as a news conference of Ukrainian president’s envoy for peace settlement in the east of Ukraine, Irina Gerashchenko.
However, Gerashchenko herself refrained from a direct conversation with journalists. She refused to answer questions by a TASS correspondent after the news conference, saying she would not speak to invaders.