MOSCOW. Feb 9 (Interfax) - The Ukrainian leadership's decision to introduce border controls with Donbas will have a negative effect on the humanitarian situation in the region, said Andrei Purgin, speaker of the People's Council of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic.
"On the one hand, Kyiv has thus acknowledged that we are a separate territory, but on the other hand, it has publicly declared that it does not recognize us," he said. "The goal of introducing border controls will aggravate the humanitarian situation in Donbas," Donetsk News Agency quoted Purgin as saying.
Purgin also said that border controls have been in effect de-facto, since it is practically impossible to enter or exit Donetsk. "One can only cross the border with a pass, which is next to impossible to get. Citizens normally travel to Kurakhovo, where they learn that they must have a pass which can only be obtained in Artemivsk. But again, a pass is obligatory for anyone traveling to Artemivsk. People staying on the other side have to wait for two or three weeks to get a pass, finally to learn that no pass can be issued, given a huge inflow of applications," he said.
Ukraine violates the constitutional principle of freedom of movement, the speaker said. "Ukraine is giving up its own constitution," he said.
The Ukrainian government has introduced border controls starting February 10 until the end of the military operation in some districts and populated areas of the Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv regions, and in two districts in the Kherson region bordering Crimea, earlier reports said.