Ukrainian president visits Donetsk region

Petr Poroshenko has pledged to pay $240,000 to the areas controlled by Kiev in the Donetsk region, the 112.ua TV channel has reported.

Ukrainian President Petr Poroshenko has arrived on a working visit to Donbass, the Ukrainian leader’s press service said on Friday.

“Ukrainian President Petr Poroshenko has begun a working trip to the Donetsk region,” the statement said.
Poroshenko has pledged to pay 5 million hryvnia ($240,000) to the areas controlled by Kiev in the Donetsk region, the 112.ua TV channel has reported.

Speaking to the employees of a machine-building plant in Kramatorsk, in eastern Ukraine, Poroshenko reiterated that he would hold a dialogue “only with those persons who will be elected by the Donetsk region citizens at the upcoming local polls.”

Poroshenko told the 8th Kiev security forum on Thursday that he would hold a dialogue only with “the other Donbas.” Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk also said Kiev was ready to talk to the DPR and LPR leaders “only when they are behind bars.”

The Donetsk republic’s envoy at the Minsk talks, Denis Pushilin, expressed concerns over this Ukrainian leader’s statement saying it comes ahead of the June 2 meeting of the Contact Group.

“Poroshenko by his statements denounces his signature that he put in Minsk upon the guarantees of Germany and France and announced plans to comply with the Minsk agreements. Now he says that he is not going to do this,” Pushilin said.