10.10.2016, Lugansk.
Over 17 thousand residents of Lugansk People’s Republic rallied in central Lugansk today against deployment of armed international missions to LPR, Interior Ministry of the Republic told LuganskInformCenter.
People of different ages and occupations participated in the rally. The residents protested against Kiev’s plea to the global community to send an armed mission to Donbass, supposedly to provide security.
“We experienced all the horrors of a fratricidal war, economic blockade and political isolation by Kiev’s authorities, which is why we supported the Minsk Agreements approved by the UN Security Council,” one of the participants of the rally, People’s Council MP, Chair of the LPR Head’s Public Council Nikolai Zaporozhtsev. “However, for two years already Kiev does not deliver on its share of promises, more than that, ignores them.”
“In response to a positive outcome of the primaries they urge to deploy an armed international mission. It will give grounds to provocations against our guys from the People’s Militia, while the international media will claim that it’s not safe in Donbass”, the MP said.
“We stand against armed international missions in Donbass, and the thousands who rally today perfectly prove it,” he emphasized.
“OSCE Mission in Donbass initially was unarmed and stays unarmed. This is why it was allowed to enter Lugansk land. The thought alone about the possible arming of this mission causes acute and mass discontent among the population, which already lived through war,” the coordinator of a youth organization “Young Guard”, a part of the public movement “Peace to Lugansk Land” Yury Dyachenko said.
“We don’t want armed representatives of Western countries to move around the peaceful streets of our villages and towns,” he added.
“Kiev says: arm the mission in Donbass to secure the fulfillment of Minsk Agreements. This is absurd – the complex of measures never allowed for the presence of an armed mission in Donbass,” says a Lina Vokalova, a participant of the rally and a Lugansk resident.
Kiev claimed multiple times that a policing mission of OSCE needs to be deployed in Donbass. Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics are against such offers and consider deployment of new missions to Donbass, as well as arming the OSCE representatives already present in the zone of conflict, unacceptable. In turn, Moscow notes that all questions regarding expansion of authority of OSCE in Donbass must be coordinated with Lugansk and Donetsk.
Source: LuganskInformCenter
