Kyiv, 14 March 2014 – “The statement made by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the events that took place in Donetsk on March 13 is biased and fundamentally misrepresents the situation,” said Head of the Donetsk Regional State Administration Sergey Taruta at a press briefing held at the Ukrainian Crisis Media Center.
According to Mr. Taruta, statements like this mislead not only Russians but also Ukrainians.
Sergey Taruta reminded that a tragedy happened in Donetsk on March 13: a young man named Dmitriy Chernyavskyi died as a result of clashes between pro-Russian protesters and peaceful pro-Ukrainian protesters.
Mr. Taruta said that the law enforcement authorities did not act effectively enough to prevent the aggression. “In the experts’ opinion, in this case the actions of the police were adequate but not sufficient to prevent the tragedy from happening. We will learn from this”, he said. The Governor added that the law enforcement authorities have a great amount of video data and that there are detainees and suspects.
“We call upon everybody now to think of their future and prevent such tragic moment from happening in the future”, he said.
Mr. Taruta also said that today, 14 March, mourning was declared in the Donetsk region. He promised that the local government would provide maximum support to the friends and family of the deceased. Taruta noted that staffing decisions would be made after the incident. “We are currently considering this issue together with all local authorities”, he said.
“We are sorry to note that yesterday there were a lot of non-Ukrainian citizens in Donetsk”, said Mr. Taruta.
Head of the Donetsk Regional State Administration underlined that the overwhelming majority of people in Donbas support the integrity of Ukraine. In addition, Mr. Taruta promised to take every step to ensure Donbas also becomes the center of reforms. “To this end, we are engaging the best experts from the Donetsk region and other parts of Ukraine, as well as international experts”, he said.
Sergey Taruta is a Ukrainian entrepreneur, Chairman of the Board of the Industrial Union of Donbas, president of the Metalurg football club (Donetsk), Head of the Donetsk Regional State Administration since 2 March 2014.
