Konotop to see no rail blockade, situation settled - Ukrzaliznytsya
KYIV. March 5 (Interfax) - The situation with a rail blockade in the city of Konotop has been settled, agreements have been reached with lawmakers and participants of the blockade, the PJSC Ukrzaliznytsya press service told Interfax on Sunday.
In particular, the railway authorities agreed to present the data about the goods shipped between Ukraine and Russia to a people's deputy, who is a participant of the rail blockade, once a month. At the same time, all trains are passing required border and customs control procedures at the Khutor-Mykhailivsky border rail station.
Participants of the blockade agreed to obstruct no train services and leave the area of blocking.
Railway authorities, representatives of the law enforcement agencies and people's deputies of Ukraine were involved in the talks. "Thanks to well-coordinated work we succeeded in rapidly settling the situation and avoiding drastic disruptions in the train schedule. The rail blockade affected no passenger train services," the press service said.
A day earlier the so-called 'trade blockade headquarters' with the parts of Donbas outside Kyiv's control announced the blocking of railways in Konotop in Ukraine's Sumy region.
"One of the main thoroughfares of trading with [...] the Russian Federation is running via Konotop. Several trains from the Russian Federation, some of them containing anthracite coal, were discovered at the Konotop freight station," the Headquarters said on its Facebook page on Saturday evening.
Over the next month the Headquarters is planning to seize "effective Ukrainian control over all of the eight main railway border crossings conducting trade" with Russia, the Headquarters also said.
Freight and passenger train services crossing the Suzemka station on Russia's border with Ukraine are operating normally, a Moscow Railway spokesperson said.
"Since midnight March 5, Moscow Railway, a subsidiary of JSC RZD [Russian Railways, MOEX: RZHD], has taken in five passenger and three cargo trains [coming] from Ukraine according to the schedule. This corresponds to the average statistical indicator. For its part, Moscow Railway sent four cargo trains to Ukraine," the company said.
In late January Ukrainian radicals began a transport blockade of the breakaway parts of the Donbas region, which led to acute shortages of coal for the Ukrainian metallurgical and energy industries.
