UNSCUN Feb 18 France, Ireland, Albania, Norway, members of the UNSC The UN, as well as the representatives of Germany, Estonia and the EU to the UN that joined them, expressed serious concern over the call by State Duma deputies to recognize the self-proclaimed DPR and LPR, French Permanent Representative to the UN Nicolas de Riviere read out a corresponding statement. The State Duma of the Russian Federation on Tuesday voted in favor of an appeal to the president Russian Federation on the need to recognize the self-proclaimed DPR and LPR. The heads of the DPR and LPR Denis Pushilin and Leonid Pasechnik said they welcomed the decision of the State Duma deputies. Russian leader Vladimir Putin, during a press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Moscow, commented on the appeal of the State Duma, saying that he would proceed from doing everything to solve the problems of Donbass, but the potential of the Minsk agreements had not yet been exhausted. «We expressed serious concern in connection with the appeal of the Russian State Duma, which calls on the President of the Russian Federation to recognize the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics, which would be a violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine,» de Riviere told reporters. The statement was made after a meeting of the UN Security Council dedicated to the implementation of the Minsk agreements. At the meeting, Russia pointed out that for 7 years Ukraine has not fulfilled a single point of the set of measures to implement the Minsk agreements. Western representatives again accused Russia of allegedly preparing «aggression» against Ukraine, which the Russian Federation rejected many times. Russian invasion of Ukraine
