Ukrainians have been at war in the east for almost eight years, after Russian-backed rebels seized big areas of two key regions – Luhansk and Donetsk. Back in 2014 the separatists declared those areas as independent, so-called people’s republics.
Russia has never recognised them as independent. But now Russia’s parliament has voted to appeal to President Vladimir Putin to recognise those two separatist-run areas as “sovereign and independent states”.
If he did, that would be the end of any kind of peace process with Ukraine. There are two accords known as the Minsk agreements from 2014 and 2015. They just haven’t been implemented yet and one way out of the current crisis would be to make progress on the Minsk deal.
Under those accords the two rebel-run regions would remain part of Ukraine, but they’d keep a special status of autonomy. Russia and Ukraine have very differing views on what that status means.
This vote by MPs isn’t binding and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has been careful to point out that no decision had been made.
Russia has already handed out some 720,000 passports to people living in the rebel regions so they’re already close to Moscow. But recognizing independence would be a dramatic decision ending any hope of reaching peace with Kyiv.
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