Interfax: Moscow says Malorossiya idea far from “real politics”

(Interfax – July 19, 2017)

The Russian Foreign Ministry has said that Ukrainian separatist leader Alexander Zakharchenko’s plan to establish a new state in Ukraine – “Malorossiya” – has nothing to do with real politics.

“In my view, these statements do not go in line with the obligations the sides [of the conflict] had taken as part of the Minsk agreements and generally… can hardly be viewed as real politics, as being part of real political life,” said Alexander Lukashevich, Russia’s envoy to the OSCE, speaking via conference call from Vienna and quoted by privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax on 19 July.

Earlier, on 18 July, Zakharchenko, head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), announced that representatives from Ukraine’s regions had agreed to establish Malorossiya as Ukraine’s “successor”, without Crimea, and with its capital in Donetsk.