Volunteer battalions sent a clear signal to the president

Rinat Akhmetov's trucks instead Donetsk will go to Dnepropetrovsk

Photo: UNIAN

Volunteer formations blockaded the access of vehicles transporting humanitarian aid from the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation to territories in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts that are not controlled by Kyiv. The fact that the convoy is not being waved through the road blocks to the ATO zone is not only a reflection of a vacuum of power in the ATO zone, but is also a serious signal to the president of Ukraine.

Exchange of PoWs

The volunteer formations Dnipro-1, Donbas, Right Sector and Kryvbas Special Forces, which are active in the zone of the anti-terrorist operation, blocked access of vehicles transporting humanitarian aid provided by the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation (RAF) to the territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts that are not controlled by official Kyiv, informed MP Semen Semenchenko (Samopomich) on his Facebook page yesterday. Prior to being elected to the Verkhovna Rada he was the commander of the Donbas National Guard Battalion. He said the Dnipro-1 battalion blocked the passage of vehicles of RAF, but then waved through several vehicles in exchange for Ukrainian prisoners of war (PoWs).

“By exchanging several convoy vehicles for six prisoners of war the soldiers of the the Dnipro regiment demonstrated that there is a mechanism for fulfilling the Minsk agreements, namely the pocket and the stomach,” wrote Semenchenko, who yesterday conducted an inspection of roadblocks in the ATO zone together with a group of people’s deputies. Semenchenko says the aim of the blocking the passage of vehicles of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation is to capture the attention of the government to the PoWs and the financing of terrorism.

Deputy Commander of Dnipro-1 Valentyn Mank said the convoy did not have accompanying documents, but Coordinator of the Humanitarian Headquarters of the foundation Rimma Fil told Capital that the humanitarian convoy travelled with same package of documentation since August 22. She said that on Monday additional documents that soldiers of Dnipro-1 demanded were presented, but the vehicles were not waved through. “Representatives of the battalion say they did not receive a command to wave the convoy through. Nobody is putting demands to us,” she said.

The ATO Headquarters told the publication nobody gave instructions to stop the humanitarian aid consignments of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation. Spokesperson of the ATO Headquarters Oleksiy Dmytrashovskiy noted that Dnipro-1 is not part of the ATO, rather is under the direct command of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He said the MIA also did not issue such a directive and “promised that the ministry will take serious measures to resolve the situation”. “This is the decision of the commander of the road block. The head of the ATO cannot give commands to internal formations of the MIA,” he told Capital.

Kolomoyskiy’s shadow

The Dnipro-1 Regiment (previously known as a battalion) was created in the spring of 2014 under the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Administration. It was headed by Yuriy Bereza, who was elected a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada during snap elections on the list of the People’s Front party. As it turns out, Head of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast State Administration (OSA) Ihor Kolomoyskiy financed the formation of the battalion. “An individual that is rendering financial assistance to the battalions is behind these incidents,” an employee of Akhmetov’s holding company told Capital, though he refused to disclose the name of the person under suspicion.

However, Deputy Head of the Dnipropetrovsk OSA Svyatoslav Oliynyk told Capital that Kolomoyskiy is not financing Dnipro-1 or other volunteer formations. He only rendered assistance when they were formed. “Kolomoyskiy has nothing to do with this. If the process of negotiations is not being held at the state level, this means the guys took the matter into their own hands. The life on the other side has been organized; and humanitarian aid is being sold in retail chains, thus forming a full-fledged commercial channel of trade,” he says.

Oliynyk noted that representatives of the self-proclaimed republics in the Donbas have already proposed an exchange of PoWs based on the principle of “all for all”, but the high command of the ATO ignored such a proposal.

A source of the publication in the Donetsk OSA says that Makhnovism of the battalions is the reason Akhmetov foundation’s problems. But the members of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc do not believe this version.

“The matter is not only about Akhmetov’s humanitarian convoy; there have been problems with passage of trucks with food through the roadblocks. Even the products of the company Nasha Ryaba were banned. Only the information about Akhmetov was quickly spread. But Akhmetov’s business is in no way suffering from these events, whereas this incident once again is sending a signal to the president of Ukraine that he has no control over the battalions,” said a representative of the PPB faction, who requested anonymity. Another two members of the PPB with whom Capital spoke share the same opinion.