According the president, the negotiations on the Donbass region have been ongoing for eight years and that process stalled.

“It is a dead end,” he expressed, while thanking the Council members for their opinions and participation in the meeting.

During the exchange, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov expressed that he does not see other way but to recognize these eastern Ukrainian territories, and pointed out that, on the other hand, the West will not change its position.

“I hope that by doing so, we will send a strong message to the world. We cannot watch indifferently for eight years as our fellow countrymen are mocked, so I do not see other way.”

Hours earlier, the heads of the self-proclaimed People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, Denis Pushlin and Leonid Pasechnik, respectively, called on Putin to recognize the independence of these territories.

At the meeting, Putin said that Ukraine already carried out two punitive military operations against the Donbass region and now, apparently, “we are witnessing the worsening of the situation for the third time”.

Putin went on to say that “all these years, the people living in these territories have really been harassed: constant shelling, blockade” and those living near the so-called front line have been forced to move into basements.

The Russian president warned that Moscow did everything possible to solve the conflict between Kiev and the Donbass region, in Ukraine, peacefully.

The Russian president recalled that from the moment when the people’s republics were established, the conflict between Ukrainian authorities and the inhabitants of that territory began.

He noted that in 2014, some Ukrainians did not accept the coup d’état and explained that this also applied to people who lived on the Crimea peninsula, as well as those who lived and continue living in Donbass.

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