according to statistics supplied by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. During the first six months of this year, there were 311,000 crossings registered at checkpoints in Luhansk and Donetsk regions. During the first six months of 2019, there were about 6 million. Ukraine’s government charges that the separatist authorities have used the Covid pandemic as an excuse to largely cut off Russia-controlled areas from government-controlled Ukraine.