MPs want Russia to recognise Ukraine’s separatist-held areas; EU warns against it

LONDON: In a sign that Russia was prepared to keep the pressure on Ukraine despite reportedly pulling back some troops from border areas, its Kremlin-controlled lower house of Parliament, the State Duma, passed a resolution on Tuesday requesting that President Putin recognise the Russian-backed separatist territories in Ukraine’s east as independent states.
The separatists claim all of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions as their territory, but control only about onethird of those lands. “This recognition would be a clear violation of the Minsk agreements", European Union’s top diplomat Josep Borrell said, referring to the peace deals signed in 2014 and 2015 to try to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine.