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Ukraine's self-proclaimed republics consider Crimea part of Russia — joint statement

The statement says the unrecognized republics would like to become part of Russia

MOSCOW, June 10. /TASS/. The self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics consider Crimea part of Russia and withdraw all the proposed draft amendments to Ukraine’s constitution mentioning Crimea and Sevastopol in order to avoid speculations, their envoys said in a joint statement on Wednesday.

"The Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) certainly consider Crimea part of Russia. Moreover, our republics would also like ideally to become part of the Russian Federation," the statement says.

The Donetsk and Luhansk republics’ envoys, Denis Pushilin and Vladislav Deinego, said the Ukrainian constitution has articles devoted to Crimea. "That’s why the draft amendments to certain articles of the current Ukrainian constitution which we propose mention Crimea only in the technical and judicial sense."

"To avoid further speculations on this issue, we withdraw those draft amendments to Ukraine’s constitution proposed by us that mention Crimea and Sevastopol," the statement stresses.

The envoys stressed that their proposal is that the special rights of the DPR and LPR should not be enshrined in Ukraine’s laws that they do not recognize. Other draft amendments need to be adopted as soon as possible, they said.

As part of the Minsk agreements, the official representatives of the DPR and LPR in mid-May presented their proposals for the constitution concerning their special status in Ukraine detailing their rights and duties. On June 8, the self-proclaimed republics unveiled their additional proposals concerning the powers of the current local authorities. Therefore, the text of the Ukrainian constitution remained unchanged.

Some media reports said that Crimea, which joined Russia more than a year ago, was mentioned as the Ukrainian territory in the document. In comments on this, the envoys said Ukraine’s propaganda tries to "overblow a kind of a political event" from minor formalities.