DONETSK. March 14 (Interfax) - Kyiv has not given the security assurances needed to evacuate the personnel of the Donetsk Filtering Station (DFS), Ruslan Yakubov, the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) representative to the Joint Center for Control and Coordination (JCCC), said.
"The premises of the DFS remain inaccessible to the OSCE SMM [Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine], and the plant's personnel cannot leave the facility due to the risk of an attack by the Ukrainian side," Yakubov told reporters on Wednesday.
No security guarantees for the unhampered work of the OSCE SMM were given during the negotiations earlier on Wednesday, he said.
"The Ukrainian side at the JCCC has not yet given the monitors any security assurances in terms of their access to the premises of the DFS. Without assistance from the OSCE, the process of evacuating personnel is too risky. People have been staying on the territory of the DFS without food for 24 hours now," Yakubov added.
On Tuesday, the management of Voda Donbasa, a utilities company, decided to evacuate its staff and halt operations at the DFS on March 14 due to periodic attacks on vehicles carrying employees.