Deputy Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada: Authorities are concealing the flow of contraband in the Donbas
Oksana Syroyid, Deputy Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, said in an article for ZN.UA that the statements about the lack of alternatives to the shipments of anthracite coal from the occupied regions of Ukraine are intended to divert public attention away from the facts revealed as a result of the blockade of the separatist-controlled Donbas, namely collaboration with separatists and the flow of contraband.
“By speculating on the ‘lack of alternatives’ to anthracite coal from the occupied territories at the peak of the heating season, our attention is drawn away from other train cars, which there are significantly more of, which the blockaders gave us the opportunity to look into. And in train cars with the marks “22” (Ukraine) and “20” (Russia), as they say, God has sent: poor coal type ‘T’; forest timber whose export they put a very timely moratorium on; gunpowder, which the Lvovugol mines cannot get in time, because this is a good with two uses, a lot of it is for the metallurgical business – iron ore, sheet steel, steel billets, limestone for fluxes, slabs and, as the government itself affirms, a lot of it is not indicated on the waybill, in other words, it’s contraband” - the report states.
At the same time she emphasized that the transport blockade of the Donbas has demonstrated that in Ukraine not even one state institute which is supposed to control the safety of goods and people crossing the demarcation line is working - “Border patrol, customs, the security service, have neither sufficient authority nor the objective of controlling what is conveyed. There are several border guards with dogs for hundreds of wagons per day – this is one more piece of evidence that the “ultimate beneficiaries” (the customers and suppliers on both sides of the front line) trust each other and have enough power to guarantee the absence of any state control.”