Kyiv is taking Donbass to starvation, this is a war crime - Newsweek
New York-Kiev, January 13 (PolitNavigator, Vasily Ablyazimov) – The American magazine Newsweek writes today that Kiev, by blockading Donbas and canceling social benefits, is condemning the region’s residents to hunger.
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Newsweek quotes Krasimir Yankov, the Ukrainian representative of Amnesty International, who said in an interview with the magazine: “[Kyiv] cut off these areas from Ukrainian financial support. People cannot get money from banks, ATMs do not work... The situation is very difficult, because 60% of the population in Donetsk is completely dependent on humanitarian aid. Small towns and villages especially suffer in Donbass.”
He said there had already been reports of deaths due to hunger, which had so far been neither confirmed nor denied. Yankov noted that the latest blockade imposed by the Kyiv government the other day is “only a new turn in this terrible chain of events and one of the reasons for the impending humanitarian catastrophe in eastern Ukraine.”
Last week Denis Krivosheev, deputy director of Amnesty International's Europe and Central Asia office, said eastern Ukraine was heading towards a "humanitarian catastrophe." In an email to Reuters, Krivosheev explained that pro-Kiev groups are contributing to the disaster by blocking humanitarian supplies. Krivosheev called this "the use of starving civilians as a method of warfare and a war crime."
Kyiv is forcing Donbas to starve, a war crime, according to Newsweek.