The Kremlin said Monday evening that Vladimir Putin would recognize the independence of the pro-Russian separatist territories in eastern Ukraine.
“A decree to this effect will be signed shortly,” said the Russian presidency. According to the same source, Mr Putin informed his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, mediators in the conflict in eastern Ukraine, of this decision and they, according to the Kremlin, “expressed their disappointment”. .
The Russian president is also due to make a statement shortly on Russian television, state media said Monday evening.
The recognition concerns the independence of two pro-Russian territories of the Ukrainian Donbass, a mining and industrial basin bordering Russia: the self-proclaimed “republics” of Donetsk and Lugansk.
In eight years, the war between Kiev and the separatists, of which Moscow is the sponsor, has killed more than 14,000 people.
A Russian recognition of the separatists short-circuits the peace process resulting from the Minsk agreements of 2015, signed by Russia and Ukraine, under Franco-German mediation, because it was precisely aimed at a return under Ukrainian sovereignty of these areas.
This decision might pave the way for a call for assistance to Russia from these territories as sovereign states in the eyes of Russia and therefore the entry of Russian forces into these regions.
The West has accused Moscow for weeks of plotting an invasion of Ukraine, given that tens of thousands of Russian troops are camped on Ukrainian borders.
