Putin says Ukraine's Minsk peace process is finished, blames Kyiv

MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that the

Minsk

peace agreement on

Ukraine

no longer existed and that there was nothing left to fulfil, but he blamed Kyiv instead of

Moscow

for killing it off.

He made the comments at a news conference in Moscow a day after he formally recognised two separatist republics in eastern Ukraine as independent.

Putin said that Moscow had recognised the two breakaway republics within the boundaries of Ukraine's Donetsk and

Luhansk

regions, swathes of which are controlled by Ukrainian government forces.