The Ukrainian government yesterday announced it will stop sending funds to areas of Donbass held by the pro-independence militias of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People's Republic (LPR). Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said Kiev will not longer "finance terrorists and imposters" in areas under control of the two self-proclaimed republics, which enjoy support from the Russian Federation.

Yatsenyuk announced this one day after the President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, said he will propose the Ukrainian Parliament to abolish a September law that was seeking to grant partial self-government for pro-independence rebel-held areas in Donbass. Poroshenko argued that a new law could be passed in the future, but under different conditions. Two of them will be maintaining a "sustainable ceasefire" and the cancellation of the DPR and DPL elections, which were held on November 2nd.

Leaders of both self-declared republics insist they have no intention of once again being part of Ukraine. Since the elections, fighting has intensified between DPR and DPL militias on one side, and the Ukrainian army on the other. Yesterday it emerged that two boys who were playing soccer in a school yard in Donetsk were killed in a shelling. Amnesty International called for an investigation to establish who was responsible for the attack. Kiev and the two breakaway republics have blamed each other.

Besides, Poroshenko announced the formation of "several new units" to "repel possible attacks" by DPR and DPL forces on towns of Donetsk and Luhansk provinces currently not under the control of the self-styled republics and also on neighbouring provinces such as Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk. Mariupol, a sea port in Donetsk province, is one of those towns: it is under Ukrainian control, but the front line is merely 10 km away.

(Picture: Petro Poroshenko / Image by the Council of Europe.)