Over the past six months, both sides of the Ukrainian conflict have violated the Minsk Agreement, Südwest-Presse wrote. Instead of prisoner exchanges and constitutional reform, the parties continue shelling and hindering negotiations.
A required restoration of normal social economic relations with the breakaway Donbass did not take place and Kiev is continuing its overall blockade: the central government prohibits the transport of all goods and supplies to the ‘rebellious’ republics and is not paying pensions and salaries.
Donbass is increasingly becoming Russian. People use rubles instead of hryvnia, buy Russian vodka instead Ukrainian gorilka and import medicines from Russia, even if they are twice as expensive as Ukrainian ones.
Thus, the Ukrainian government has given up the idea of open offensives and become passive-aggressive. It treats its own countrymen as enemies, seeking to harm the Donbass people by any means necessary, the newspaper wrote.
