At the meeting with Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs of Great Britain Boris Johnson and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland Witold Waszczykowski, President Petro Poroshenko noted that the Kremlin demonstrates escalation of the situation in eastern Ukraine. Particularly, in the issue of security: drastic increase in the number of shelling and casualties among civilians and Ukrainian military, use of heavy artillery.

Petro Poroshenko reminded that in the course of the Munich Security Conference, Russian President V. Putin approved a decision to recognize documents issued by the so-called DPR and LPR. “Another brutal and dreadful violation of international law took place - Rusia de-facto confiscated Ukrainian state and private assets located in the occupied territory. This is another evidence of Russian occupation of eastern Ukraine,” the Head of State emphasized.

The President added that this is taking place against the background of actual putting these territories into the “ruble zone”, gas and power supply from Russia, introduction of direct budget transfers. “This is an absolutely clear confirmation of the fact of occupation of this territory by Russian troops along with full control over the state border in the uncontrolled area. In this regard, we emphasize that Russia bears full responsibility for ceasefire violation, murder of Ukrainian military and civilians, illegal detention of hostages both in the occupied territory and in Russia,” Petro Poroshenko stressed.

The Head of State also called for the introduction of sanctions against individuals who illegally appropriate Ukrainian assets: “To apply sanctions for the violation of international and Ukrainian legislation against those who will enter into the so-called possession of confiscated assets”. The President is confident that coordinated actions will be efficient.