Russia Urges to End Donbass Blockade at Normandy Talks - Lavrov

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Saturday he had drawn attention to the ongoing blockade of Donbass by Ukrainian nationalists and had urged to pressure Kiev into lifting it.

MUNICH (Sputnik) — Head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) Alexander Zakharchenko said Thursday that Donbass would cope with the blockade organized by Ukrainian radicals, whereas for Kiev, the consequences would be serious, as in two weeks Kiev "can forget about heating and energy industry."

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Thursday condemned the blocking by Ukrainian radicals of coal deliveries from Donbass.

"We underscored that the blockade of Donbass by Ukrainian radicals – including severing railway connection and car traffic and threats to end all access to this area – was unacceptable," Lavrov said after meeting French, German and Ukrainian counterparts in Munich.

"We brought up this issue and demanded that the blockade be immediately lifted. Our ‘Normandy Format’ partners had backed the proposal and it was added to the statement read out by the French and German ministers," he added.

Lavrov said that the Normandy Four top diplomats noted the absence of significant progress in the implementation of Minsk accords in eastern Ukraine.

"The quartet assessed progress in the implementation of agreements that Russian, French, Ukrainian and German heads of state reached in Berlin in November [2016]… Unfortunately, we noted lack of significant progress in this area" Lavrov told reporters.

Earlier in the day, Russian, Ukrainian, French and German foreign ministers held talks in the Normandy format on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference to discuss peace progress in eastern Ukraine.