Thread by @vmorkevicius

It seems the lower house of the Duma will consider two draft proposals on Tuesday— one calling directly in Putin to recognize Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics and a second one asking Putin to consult with the Defense and Foreign Ministries first. /1

themoscowtimes.com/2022/02/14/rus…

https://twitter.com/bershidsky/status/1493186324400115716

The first proposal was brought forward by the Communist party and the Just Russia party, which together hold under 20% of the seats in the lower Duma.

The second was brought by Putin’s United Russia party, which holds the vast majority of the seats. /2

csis.org/analysis/will-…

Recognizing the Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics would eliminate the Kremlin’s need for the pretense that this is an internal Ukrainian problem that the Kremlin is merely concerned about as a neighbor. /3

After all, per the Minsk protocols, the political solution is meant to be decentralization within Ukraine.

And Ukraine has, indeed, implemented a series of reforms aimed at just that. /4

peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemak…

chathamhouse.org/sites/default/…

wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/ukra…

And Ukraine has already committed to continued reforms aimed at increasing decentralization / encouraging local autonomy. /5

oecd.org/eurasia/compet…

And here is a helpful article from @voxukraine outlining the reforms made so far and their results, as well as debunking some politicians’ misleading claims about the process. /6

voxukraine.org/en/decentraliz…