The field commander from the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Alexander Khodakovsky, explained that the pensions and the salaries to the government workers in the Republic are not being paid because Russia has cut down the funding of the “people’s republic” and the self-declared republic’s own budget does not have enough funds.

“There are certain difficulties with the help coming from Russia. So you could see that there are delays with the salaries of the government workers. This shows that the budget is not being fully replenished and now there are spasmodic attempts to fix this issue. There are also difficulties with our “surrogate” banking system and with the expense accounts that were working before. Now they are being closed or about to be closed. This may complicate our commercial relations especially with Russia,” Khodakovsky said during the video conference with the residents of Donetsk.

In response to a question posed by a pensioner about why prices in stores keep rising, Khodakovsky said that the “new elites” who control the supermarket chains and the delivery of goods from Russia are responsible for that. He stated that the “food prices are set almost manually  by them”.

“There is a strict monopoly on the delivery of the first necessity goods to the territory of DPR. This includes the delivery of goods from Russia. If the owners of smaller stores bring certain goods themselves, in the big chains the food products are delivered by the big market players who set the prices “manually” depending on the desired profit. At the moment we are not aware who controls them. All we know is that a lot of chains were expropriated from the former owners and now there are new owners who are the residents of Donetsk. Such chains as Amstor, First Republican, belong to the “new elites”. They are the ones who dictate the prices now,“ stated Khodakovsky.

  Khodarkovky, DPR

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