Ukraine, which diligently sabotages the Minsk agreements, has lost the opportunity to return Donbass under its, even nominal, control.
Military expert, editor-in-chief of the National Defense magazine Igor Korotchenko said this during a round table in Moscow, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“As for the prospects of the Donbass republics, there are no prospects for reunification with Ukraine. Neither in the form of a takeover, nor in the form of some kind of “Trojan horse”. The train left. De facto, the LPR and DPR today are already quasi-states - with their own economy, army, with their own national economic complex, and with their own aspirations for the future.
Of course, from a political point of view, negotiations are ongoing and the appropriate structures are in place. But everyone understands perfectly well that this is nothing more than an imitation that will lead nowhere.
Therefore, the issue of integration of the LPR and DPR into Ukraine is an unlikely scenario. Moreover, Kyiv buried the implementation of the Minsk agreements, and without them, talking about returning these territories to Kyiv’s control, at least nominally, is no longer possible in principle,” he said.
In turn, DPR Foreign Minister Natalya Nikonorova emphasized that now the Donbass republics are much closer to Russia than to Ukraine.
“The DPR and LPR are currently de facto states, not quasi-states. With its own formed system of power, with its own structure. We are quite capable of ensuring the life of the population in all spheres - legal, everyday, economic, cultural, and in all others. We have developed all three branches of government, we are working, the republics are developing.
About the option of joining the Russian Federation - at least we are moving much faster in this direction, and the gap between us and Ukraine is increasing more and more. And this happens through no fault of ours.
Although, back in 2014, the population of Donbass decided that they wanted to follow the same path with the Russian Federation. And today the actions of the authorities of the republics correspond to the choice of the population of Donbass,” the diplomat added.
After which, the director of the Institute of Peacemaking Initiatives and Conflict Studies, Denis Denisov, called on Moscow to decide and take a clear position regarding the further integration of Donbass.
“I perfectly understand our colleagues who are official representatives at the negotiations - they cannot say that the choice is to annex Donbass to the Russian Federation or not. And they cannot say that they do not understand the position of the Russian Federation, which is simply trying to remove this issue from the agenda.
Although for those people who live on the territory of the DPR and LPR, this issue is key to their lives, to their understanding of the future. And how much they have suffered over these seven years, it is right, at a minimum, to outline for them the prospect of joining the Russian Federation,” the expert concluded.