Russia is financing the "authorities" of the Donbas militants through the Bank of South Ossetia. This was reported in the Security Service of Ukraine press center. "Investigators of the special services found that in order to avoid sanctions against the banking sector, the Russian Federation created special financial institutions on its own territory and in the temporarily occupied areas of Donbas. Since 2014, after introducing the territory of the ruble zone into the so-called Luhansk People's Republic, Russia designed the financing mechanism of the “authorities' apparatus.” The SBU has documented for a long time that, to conceal the direct financial support of fake institutions in the occupied territory of the Luhansk region, Russia involved a financier South Ossetian banking institution, through which funds were transferred", the statement said.According to the SBU, the annual amount of financing of Donbas "authorities" by the Russian Federation exceeds 30 billion Russian rubles (490 million USD). It is noted that this amounts to more than two-thirds of the total needs of the so-called Luhansk People's Republic.