The demoted commander of the battalion «Donbass», Semen Semenchenko, threatened to start a «separately taken» blockade of Donbass as early as December last year. 

On January 25, his threat acquired a real shape. Groups of the military calling themself the ‘ATO veterans’ (most of them are from the battalions «Donbass», «Dnepr", «Aydar» and «Chernigov-1»), started the ‘third phase of the blockade’. The base for the blockade of the LPR was set in Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, which currently attracts those wishing to take part in the blockade, with volunteers bringing food and firewood.

The military have blocked the railway connection Lugansk - Lisichansk - Popasnaya on the stretch Gorskoe - Zolotoye. A checkpoint has been set and the lines on the route Sentyanovka - Shipilova have been blocked. The Sentyanovka station is 50 km away from Lugansk on the highway P66. The Shipilova station is 65 km away from Lugansk by P66 road. 

Over the first day, there were allegedly blocked 12 trains with a total of 700 carriages, although the locals report two freight trains and one passenger train.

In the evening of January 25, in the blockade area, a ​​conflict occurred when ‘a freight train tried to ram the checkpoint with the veterans and MPs of Ukraine’. Semenchenko promises: the train, ‘participating in the financing of terrorism will be welded to the rails near the checkpoint Bogdan Redoubt and become a monument to smuggling and trade in blood. Their tombstone’. 

The fate of the engine drivers of the stopped train remains unknown.

According to the organizers of the blockade, they are supported by ‘ordinary employees of the Interior Ministry, border guards and the SBU employees’. In particular, the reinforced blockade of the LPR was welcomed by the head of the Stanichno-Lugansk State Administration, Yuriy Zolkin. 

Semenchenko’s gang’s actions are noisy supported in social networks where people demand to begin the dismantling of railway lines. 

The reaction of the authorities and the management of the «Ukrzaliznytsia» (Ukrainian railway) to the action of an illegal armed formation, carrying out acts of sabotage on the highways, is still unknown.

It is expected that the LPR authorities will react not only with statements of protest, but adequate and practical actions. In particular, with the termination of the transport of coal and a number of special purpose products to Ukraine.

According to: DNR24