Why the State Duma decided to recognise the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics

On February 15, the State Duma of the Russian Federation, by votes of 351 "for" and 16 "against", supported the resolution, on the proposal of the Communist Party faction, about the chamber's appeal to Russian President Vladimir Putin on the recognition of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics. This decision of the State Duma has already caused a wide resonance in the international arena and, in this regard, it is worth assessing the prospects of this decision.

To begin with, it should be recalled that against the background of the pumping Ukraine with weapons by Western countries, on January 19, deputies from the Communist Party submitted to the State Duma a draft of the chamber's appeal to Russian President Vladimir Putin on the recognition of the DPR and LPR.

On January 26, the head of the “United Russia” faction, Vladimir Vasilyev, appealed to the Russian leadership with a request to assist the self-proclaimed DPR and LPR with the supply of military products and take all necessary measures to ensure the safety of their citizens. It's no secret that a significant part of the population of the DPR and LPR has Russian citizenship and it is the direct duty of the Russian state to protect its citizens.

As the press secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov reported, Vladimir Putin took into account the appeal of the State Duma with a proposal to recognise the independence of the self-proclaimed DPR and LPR, but there is no clear regulation on further actions.

Thus, this appeal of deputies will be under consideration by the president for as long as necessary. The decree on the recognition of the DPR and the LPR can be signed by the Russian president at any time and without the appeal of the State Duma.

On February 15, during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, commenting on the State Duma's appeal, Vladimir Putin publicly stated:  "I will proceed from the fact that we must do everything to solve the problem of Donbass, but do it first of all based on the possibilities for the implementation of the Minsk Agreements."

According to the president, the deputies of the parliament, who called on him to consider the need to recognise the DPR and the LPR, "just like in any country, are guided by public opinion, by the opinion of their voters”. "It is quite obvious that in our country the overwhelming majority of people sympathise with the residents of Donbass, support them and hope that the situation there will radically change for the better for them."

Olaf Scholz, in turn, said that the recognition of the DPR and the LPR would be a violation of the Minsk Agreements and a "political catastrophe”. French President Emmanuel Macron appealed to Russian leader Vladimir Putin to abandon the idea of recognising the self-proclaimed republics. The head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrell, also said that such recognition would be a violation of the Minsk agreements.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba commented that "if a decision is made to recognise the DPR and the LPR, Russia will de facto and de jure withdraw from the Minsk Agreements”. The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine has adopted an appeal to the UN, the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the OSCE and NATO, and governments and parliaments of foreign states, in which it condemned Russia's attempts to "legalise the independence of illegal entities" in Donbass.

Of course, our "Western partners" say obvious things, the recognition of the DPR and the LPR as independent subjects of international relations destroys the provisions of the Minsk Agreements. However, such a proposal of the State Duma was born on the basis of the current situation developing around Ukraine, which, first of all, is created by Western countries.

The main violin here, of course, is played by America, as is indicated in the material of the RUSSTRAT Institute "The US has brought Ukraine to a crescendo", and  panic about a possible "invasion of Russia", created, first of all in the American media, has already seriously hit the economy of Ukraine. It is obvious that by pumping Ukraine with weapons, the United States is pushing its leadership to provocative actions in Donbass to draw Russia into the conflict.

It's precisely for this reason that in the State Duma there was a proposal to recognise the independence of the DPR and the LPR, as an option for retaliatory actions in the event of an attack by Ukraine on the republics. It should be taken into account that the DPR and the LPR formalise themselves within the borders of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, which, at the moment, are partially occupied by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Accordingly, it can be concluded that in the event of aggressive actions by Ukraine and the subsequent recognition of the DPR and the LPR by Russia, the republics will be provided with military-technical assistance that will help them regain full control over their borders.

This, in turn, means the complete defeat of the UAF grouping, followed by the collapse of the vertical of the Ukrainian government. Back in 2018, the Russian president warned that Ukraine's offensive on Donbass could lead to "very serious consequences for Ukrainian statehood as a whole”. It is not difficult to assume that in this case, several more unrecognised republics may appear on the territory of the former Ukraine.

However, at the moment, as mentioned above, Vladimir Putin believes that the potential of the Minsk Agreements has not been exhausted. The zugzwang situation into which the Ukrainian leadership has fallen is extremely clear, although, probably, it is not yet realised by them. On the one hand, it is being pressured by the United States, which wants provocations to draw Russia into a conflict. On the other hand, there is an option with the implementation of the Minsk Agreements, which Germany and France insist on and which are afraid of the prospect of war in Europe.

So far, judging by the negotiations of political advisers in the "Normandy format", which took place on February 11 and ended without results, Ukraine does not want to implement the Minsk Agreements. As Dmitry Kozak, Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration of Russia, explained, Ukraine refused to even quote the Minsk Agreements in the final document regarding the discussion of the status of Donbass with its representatives.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, after a meeting with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky on February 14, said that the latter promised to submit for consideration laws on the special status of Donbass and elections in the DPR and LPR. However, the head of the presidential party, David Arakhamia, has already commented that draft laws for the implementation of the Minsk Agreements will be adopted only in the sequence that suits Ukraine.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba, in a telephone conversation with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, expressed himself in much the same way, stating that it was impossible to implement the Minsk Agreements "on Russia's terms”.

If the Ukrainian leadership continues in the same spirit, then under the continuing pressure of information hysteria, spread by the United States, they will have no any other options but to implement a provocation in Donbass.

After all, the Western media have already promised the whole world "Russia's attack on Ukraine”. However, Russia is not going to participate in this, which means that Ukraine itself will have to play this plot. Otherwise, information hysteria will persist and finish off the Ukrainian economy. In support of this thesis, on February 16, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that a "Russian attack" could take place next week too.

The fact that it is precisely the West that needs a provocation in Ukraine, experts of the RUSSTRAT Institute note:

"Zelensky needs to think a hundred times before giving the go-ahead for provocation. And if the West goes to it without the knowledge of the President of Ukraine, it will only emphasise the puppet nature of the government in Ukraine and by its fact disavow the Minsk Agreements already from the side of the West. And then Moscow's hands will be untied. But in order not to waste precious hours, or even minutes, on the necessary legal support for actions, Moscow prepared for a possible provocation of the West in advance.

Accordingly, many experts mistakenly write that the State Duma's decision to recognise the L/DPR destroys the Minsk Agreements. On the contrary, the entire state-military machine of Russia has been prepared by this decision of the State Duma just in case the Minsk Agreements are destroyed by the West, carrying out a provocation in the form of the one among the two scenarios described above, and then Putin's retaliatory decision to recognise the L/DPR, when every minute is precious, will set in motion the entire retaliatory mechanism of Russian actions. And then the West will have nothing to compete with that. And today they were confronted with the fact that Moscow is ready for the provocation of the West."