Russian President Vladimir Putin declared today that the decision of the country’s authorities regarding what happens in the Ukrainian region of Donbass will be taken depending on the evolution of events.
“Ultimately, we must decide with you what to do next and how we should proceed, based on the situation that arises today and our assessments of its evolution,” the president said as he opened a Security Council meeting in the Kremlin.
Putin announced that the purpose of the meeting is to listen to the opinions of the members of the Council on the requests of the heads of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as the State Duma (Lower House of the Russian Parliament) for the country to recognize the independence of those territories.
He commented that Kiev has already carried out two punitive military operations against the Donbass region and now, it seems, “we are witnessing the aggravation of the situation for the third time,” said the Russian head of state.
He denounced that “all these years, the people who live in these territories were really harassed: constant bombardment, blockade”, and those who live near the so-called front line were forced to move to the basements.
In his speech, he warned that Moscow did everything possible to peacefully resolve the conflict between Kiev and the Donbass region of Ukraine.
The president recalled that from the moment the people’s republics were formed, the confrontation began between the Ukrainian authorities and the inhabitants of that territory.
He noted that in 2014 a part of the Ukrainians did not accept the coup d’état and specified that this also applied to people who lived on the Crimean peninsula, as well as those who lived and continue to live in Donbass.
According to Putin, the course of events shows that the current Ukrainian authorities are not going to implement the Minsk agreements for a peaceful solution to the internal conflict.
“They have already declared it publicly many times at the highest state level, and at the level of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, at the level of the Secretary of the Security Council,” he argued.
He noted that Moscow continues to make efforts to resolve all difficult and tragic issues peacefully. “But now we see what we have,” she emphasized.
