The words of Alexander Zakharchenko, the head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) about the creation of Malorossiya are his personal initiative, Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.
“Zakharchenko’s statement, made this morning on the topic of Malorossiya, is his personal initiative. We knew about it from the media this morning. We are committed to Minsk agreements,” Peskov told journalists.
Earlier, the head of the DPP, Alexander Zakharchenko, proposed to create a new state, Malorossiya, as an assignee of Ukraine for a transitional period of up to three years, with non-aligned status, a course for restoring ties with Russia and joining the Union State of Russia and Belarus.
The leadership of the Luhansk People’s Republic reported that this project was not discussed with the LPR. Speaker of the parliament of the DPR Denis Pushilin specified that the creation of Malorossiya is only an idea that is perceived ambiguously, including in the DPR, and it is necessary to know the attitude of society towards it. Boris Gryzlov, the ambassador of the Russian Federation in the Contact Group for Donbass noted that the initiative for Malorossiya does not fit into the Minsk process and is not the subject of real politics, but a response to Kiev’s provocative statements.