LPR says ready to repair bridge in Stanytsia Luhanska independently
LUHANSK. Aug 7 (Interfax) - Head of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) Leonid Pasechnik has said the LPR authorities stand ready to repair on their own a bridge at a checkpoint located in Stanytsia Luhanska betwixt the LPR and Ukraine.
"If the Ukrainian side declines to rebuild it for some reasons, so, we will continue talks until we ourselves will build this bridge. In any case, the talks will seek that, we will not make any decisions independently, but we are ready to do our utmost for the comfort of our residents," Pasechnik said during a Q&A session with Ukrainian residents on Wednesday.
The republic's leadership is doing their best for the comfortable passage of civilians across the bridge at the checkpoint in Stanytsia Luhanska, the LPR leader said.
"We have been negotiating in Minsk over the last two years that a bridge should be reconstructed and rebuilt, and we finally agreed that the Ukrainian side will restore a bridge span destroyed by them, and our side will make another minor repair," Pasechnik added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Stanytsia Luhanska during his working trip to the Luhansk Region on July 7 and said that Ukraine wants to reconstruct the destroyed bridge.
On July 31, at a meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group on settlement of the Donbas crisis in Minsk the parties agreed to begin mine clearance efforts in the area adjacent to the bridge in Stanytsia Luhanska since August 1.
On August 1, the Stanytsia Luhanska state district administration said mine disposal experts of the Ukrainian State Emergency Situations Service had begun demining the area around the destroyed bridge. Specialists of the LPR Ministry of Emergency Situations also began clearing the area around the bridge of mines.
On August 7, in a phone conversation Zelensky briefed Russian President Vladimir Putin on the events in Donbas. He said that the talk in particular focused on mine clearance efforts in the area of the Stanytsia Luhanska checkpoint.
"Our mine action continues, and the period of building a bridge in Stanytsia Luhanska from the other side needs to be cut," he said.
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