Image by Graham Phillips
The head of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Denis Pushilin, declared the DPR will continue to move forward integration with the Russian Federation. This announcement comes as the Minsk Agreements are still not implemented in the Donbass region of East Ukraine where over 13,000 people have been killed in the conflict between Ukraine and pro-Russian separatists.
“After the Normandy Four meeting, we understood who our friends and enemies are,” he said. “We want to move in the same direction with Russia, and we will be steadily moving towards this goal, regardless of Kiev’s opinion.” “Moreover, integration processes with Russia do not violate the Minsk Agreements in any way,” Pushilin declared, reported Russian state news agency TASS.
Some troops in the region have moved heavy weapons back from front lines in a recent cease fire but much of the forward line of troops experiences constant war conditions on both sides.
For his part, head of the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) Leonid Pasechnik stated that Donbass would continue the process of integration with Russia regardless of the stance of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and his Western partners, added TASS.
“We call for strict adherence to the Minsk Agreements, the decisions of the Normandy format and obligatory coordination of all aspects of the advent of peace with representatives of both republics,” he noted.
“At the same time, we think that integration with the Russian Federation does not violate the Minsk Agreements in any way, and we will be carrying it out regardless of whether Zelensky and his Western partners approve of it,” Pasechnik stressed.
The issue of how to end the war in Donbass has been a problem for Kyiv as well as Moscow, where support for the conflict has diminished. New Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy campaigned on ending the conflict.
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