The First Deputy Chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Iryna Herashchenko and a member of parliament Iryna Friz paid their working visit to the Donbas

On July 14, the Presidential envoy on peaceful settlement of the Donetsk-Luhansk clash, Ukraine’s representative in the TCG’s humanitarian subgroup Iryna Herashchenko together with the head of the state information systems security subcommittee, the head of the Permanent Delegation to NATO Parliamentary Assembly Iryna Friz were on their working visit to eastern Ukraine.

They got a chance to see through the social and humanitarian situation in settlements of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, examine the state of play in reconstruction of destroyed infrastructure objects, have a series of task meetings with the local military to discuss the Donbas security situation and the local mine action activity.

Donbas mine action

Based on the Croatian and other states demining experience, soon there will be tabled a bill on humanitarian demining initiated by I.Friz, M.Ionova and I.Herashchenko. The latter reckons the demining issue should be legally solved at the autumn session. The visiting team inspected the demining works in progress in the Luhansk oblast, where thirty-nine minesweep teams are at work. The land area to be mine-checked is thought to be over seven thousand hectares, taking a long time to cope with.

JFO, checkpoints and infrastructure renovations

The parliamentarians saw how the Headquarters of the Joint Force Operation (JFO) works. The JFO commander pointed out at a high level of coordination and cooperation between the military units involved in the operation.

Within the visit’s framework, the parliamentary team also called on the overpass nearby the town of Popasna which had been ruined in 2014. Currently, the object is being renovated by the special military transportation unit. They also checked up the bridge near the village of Troitske, rebuilt and launched by the said unit on June 20.

The politicians also visited several human settlements most suffered from shelling, Troitske and Zolote, in particular, and discussed the closure of the ‘Zolote’ checkpoint with the locals.

The visit was said to result in further submitting a set of parliamentary requests and legislative amendments to the Cabinet and the Parliament on use of weapons in the JFO area and goods transportation through the checkpoints.

Awards and charity

Iryna Herashchenko and Iryna Friz awarded female soldiers with the Parliament’s decorations and thanked them for their self-sacrificing service. Pursuant to the act of charity “Library for Donbas”, the parliamentarians handed over several packs of Ukrainian books to the servicemen visited. During the four-year action, there have been thirty-five thousand books sent to the Donbas readers.

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