Co-founder of the DPR denied DPR citizenship
The former speaker of the parliament of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), Andrei Purgin, reported in VKontakte social network that he was denied a DPR passport.
“My saga with a passport is over. I have been denied the right to life, the basic human right. Simply and casually, I was deprived of all documents ... By the way, my wife was denied a passport too, and she pays taxes,” wrote Purgin. The ex-speaker of the DPR parliament published an official document dated July 4, 2017, on January 29. It states that the application for issuing a passport was rejected in accordance with the regulations of the DPR citizen passports.
In the comments to his post on the social network, Purgin said that he has a Ukrainian international passport, “which will expire very soon”. “Very soon I will be able to live only within my house since I will not be able to go outside. We have martial law and they check documents on the streets. Personal sanctions of half of the world (they have not been canceled) also apply to me, and I am wanted in Ukraine,” he wrote.
In a conversation with RBC news agency Purgin confirmed the authenticity of this post on the social network. Answering the question of the correspondent, what he intends to do in the future, he replied: “I have not yet decided what to do.”
At the same time, he added that he intends to stay in Donetsk since he has nowhere to go.
Andrei Purgin served as chairman of the People’s Council (Parliament) of the DPR from November 14, 2014, to September 4, 2015. After the beginning of the military conflict in the east of Ukraine in 2014, he was one of the founders of the Donetsk People's Republic. In the autumn of 2015, he was dismissed. Denis Pushilin, who replaced him, explained this by an attempt to disrupt the parliament’s meeting. In addition, Purgin, according to Pushilin, spent four days under arrest.