Pensions, salaries to be suspended in Donetsk region - minister
KYIV. May 19 (Interfax) - The payment of pensions and public sector salaries in Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, cities in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region, will be suspended because of attacks on banks, post offices and infrastructural facilities, the interior minister said on Monday.
"In Slovyansk and Kramatorsk it has become critically impossible for the state to carry out its function of supporting the population," Arsen Avakov told a news conference in Kyiv.
On Sunday, a natural gas distribution plant was captured, and electricity transmission lines, railroads and other infrastructural facilities were damaged, he said.
"Today, the rail terminal in Donetsk has been captured with all its infrastructure, and so all these functions will be terminated. In the same way, after the capture of post offices and bank branches and assaults on cash collection vehicles in Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, payments under state commitments involving pensions, salaries and so on will apparently be halted," Avakov said.
