Duma Appeals to Putin to Recognize Donbass Rebel Republics as Independent States

Editor’s note: Communists who proposed this aren’t privy to Putin’s intent in Ukraine, and neither are United Russia MPs who hesitated to vote this in, proposing that the Foreign Ministry be asked to weight in first. Nonetheless, the vote does serve to keep the heat up, and gives Putin one more (not great) tool he can reach for.

For Donbass itself practical things like Russian pensions, customs-free access to the Russian market, and a Russian defense guarantee (all of which it already has) are much more important than formal recognition.

The State Duma on Tuesday, February 15, adopted a resolution on an appeal to the President of Russia to recognize the independence of the LPR and the DPR. The majority during the rating voting voted for a tougher version of the Communist Party. He assumes that the appeal will be sent immediately to the President of Russia, while United Russia offered to first consult with the Foreign Ministry.

Note that the text of the appeal itself is the same in both versions.

At the beginning of the discussion, Nikolai Kharitonov, a representative of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, offered to finalize both resolutions within an hour and create one of them: “This is not the moment when you need to prove who loves the Motherland more. The text is absolutely the same.” But the speaker of the State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, objected that the regulations had already been approved the day before and approved by the Council of the Duma.

Then the authors of two versions of the appeal spoke. Kazbek Taysaev (KPRF) said: “It’s time to stop the bloodshed in the Donbass. According to the UN, more than 10,000 people died there. But in fact, more than 50,000 people died – I often go there and know from my sources. Washington puppeteers are trying cause massive bloodshed. There is no alternative to the Minsk agreement, but Ukraine continues to ignore them, so Russia must take matters into its own hands.”

According to Taysaev, it is necessary to: “Recognize the results of the referendum [in the unrecognized republics] of 2014 Simplify the acquisition of Russian citizenship for residents of Donbass Integrate Donbass into the Russian economy.”

“In the case of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, we were also frightened by sanctions and a full-scale war, but nothing like that happened,” the deputy added.

He also rejected the suggestion that the opinion of the inhabitants of Donbass could have changed since 2014, and they may no longer want recognition of independence: “There is no point in a new referendum. We constantly go there, hundreds of thousands of people turn to us with a request to recognize independence”.

In addition, the communists believe that Russians living in the Russian Federation are ready to give up both the 13th salary and a full refrigerator for the sake of the well-being of the residents of Donbass (if economic sanctions are imposed on Russia). ” The people of Russia fully support our resolution,” Taysaev said.

The co-author of the “United Russia” version of the resolution, Artem Turov, said that consultations in the Foreign Ministry are needed, since Russia has a number of international agreements and agreements. We are talking about the Minsk agreements. This was confirmed by the chairman of the Committee on CIS Affairs Leonid Kalashnikov: “Recognition of independence destroys the Minsk agreements, yes. The referendum is, in fact, frozen by the Minsk agreements. How to get out of the situation when we are threatened with sanctions and war? We are only shaping the position of the State Duma.”

The Communists also accused United Russia of trying to “bury the appeal by putting it in for consultations.” “This is red tape,” said Alexander Yushchenko, first deputy chairman of the Communist Party faction in the State Duma.

Sardana Avksentyeva, a spokeswoman for the [liberal] New People, noted that a diplomatic process is underway, although not a fast one. Now there are no active hostilities in the Donbass. “The intensity of the clashes has decreased. And in this I trust our diplomats. Our main task is to fight poverty. To fulfill what we promised our voters during the election campaign. high inflation, poverty, low wages… Moreover, our decision can lead to real human casualties. Our party stands for the implementation of the Minsk agreements, an international, recognized document,” she said.

“United Russia” Vyacheslav Makarov said that his parties are in favor of “the adoption of a strategically sound decision.” “The Minsk agreements are not observed today anyway. Our compatriots are suffering,” the deputy believes. ” In our thousand-year history, we won all wars because we always wanted peace. Russia has never shown aggression ,” Makarov added. He “revealed a secret” that the United Russia faction did not take a consolidated decision on voting on the resolution.

As a result, 351 deputies voted for the Communist Party version, and 310 for the United Russia version.

Source: Nakanune

The State Duma approved a resolution at its session on Tuesday to forward to the Russian president a draft appeal by the lower house of Russia’s parliament as proposed by the Communist faction on recognizing the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR).

The decision was supported by 351 lawmakers, with 16 votes against it and one abstention. The State Duma rejected a competing draft resolution on forwarding the appeal to the Foreign Ministry for consultations. This motion gained only 310 votes during the ranked voting.

As Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin pointed out, the resolution “will be signed immediately and forwarded to the head of state.” The politician wrote on his Telegram channel that the motion would be forwarded to the Russian leader “to consider the issue of recognizing the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic as self-sustained, sovereign and independent states.”

“Kiev is not fulfilling the Minsk Agreements. Our citizens and compatriots living in Donbass need assistance and support,” the State Duma speaker insisted.

As Volodin pointed out, the lawmakers are certain that “the recognition of the DPR and the LPR will create grounds for ensuring security guarantees and protecting residents of the republics from external threats, and also for bolstering international peace and regional stability in compliance with the goals and the principles of the Charter of the United Nations Organization and will pave the way for the process of recognizing both states internationally.”

Appeal to Russian president

The draft appeal was submitted to the State Duma on January 19 by the faction of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF). Under the document, the State Duma turns to the head of state with a request to consider recognizing the self-proclaimed republics “as self-sustained, sovereign and independent states.”

It follows from the text of the document that the lawmakers “deem as substantiated and morally justified the recognition” of the DPR and the LPR.

“Over recent years, democratic bodies and states with all the attributes of legitimate power have been built in the republics based on the people’s free will,” the document says.

The lawmakers deem it necessary to propose that the Russian president consider the issue of holding negotiations with the leaderships of the DPR and the LPR as soon as possible “for the purpose of creating a legal framework of inter-state relations to provide for the regulation of all the aspects of cooperation and mutual assistance, including security issues.”

Polemics

The competing draft resolution worked out by the ruling United Russia party and rejected by the State Duma did not stipulate that the appeal would be forwarded to the head of state immediately after the completion of consultations with the Russian Foreign Ministry. This nuance caused disagreement among members of the KPRF faction. In particular, Faction First Deputy Head Nikolai Kolomeitsev argued that in this case the State Duma would have not given “the president additional trump cards.” He further argued that such a resolution could have delayed the process of examining the appeal.

For his part, Head of the State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs, Eurasian Integration and Ties with Compatriots and one of the authors of the document Leonid Kalashnikov (KPRF) pointed out that the appeal itself did not mean recognizing the republics. “Recognition or non-recognition is implemented by the president and this is solely his competence,” the lawmaker stressed. He also said that “the possibility of the DPR and LPR leaders themselves turning to the president is also not ruled out.”

“With regard to the issue of recognizing the Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics, the parliamentarians of all the factions demonstrated their unanimity,” Deputy Head of the United Russia faction Yevgeny Revenko was quoted by the faction’s press office as saying. He pointed out that today’s resolution “is an open position of the country’s parliament and people on what is taking place in the southeast of Ukraine.”

Source: TASS