The envoy of the Lugansk People’s Republic to the Contact Group on Ukraine said on Tuesday he was “flattered” by seeing his name on a US expanded list of sanctions, adding that the situation with sanctions on the whole demonstrated Washington’s real attitude to the settlement process in Donbass.
“This is a general assessment of the Minsk process by the United States,” and its attitude to the Normandy Four format as well, the LuganskInformCentre news agency quoted him as saying.
Deinego pointed out that a protocol of September 5, 2014, gave him security guarantees, and as for a possible ‘freezing’ of accounts in American banks he joked that he would have been glad to have this money.
“If they find them (the accounts) somewhere, I will get this all after the sanctions are lifted,” he said.
The US Department of the Treasury issued on Tuesday an expanded list of sanctions against legal entities and individuals of Russia, Ukraine, as well as the Donetsk and Lugansk republics. The LPR officials falling under sanctions also include the chairman of the republic’s Council of Ministers, Gennady Tsypkapov, acting deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers Vassily Nikitin and Justice Minister Sergey Kozyakov.
The Trilateral Contact Group on Ukrainian settlement on Tuesday finished its last round of talks in the outgoing year. Also on Tuesday, the Belarusian capital city of Minsk hosted talks of the Contact Group’s working subgroups on security, on economic and on humanitarian issues.
The Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine comprising senior representatives from Russia, Ukraine and the European security watchdog OSCE on February 12, 2015, signed a 13-point Package of Measures to fulfil the September 2014 Minsk agreements. The package was agreed with the leaders of the Normandy Four, namely Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine.
