MOSCOW, January 20. /TASS/. The Kremlin will not offer any comment regarding the Communist Party’s proposal for recognizing the Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic before the draft proposal has been officially considered by the State Duma, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the media on Thursday.

"As far as I understand, the State Duma is to vote on the proposal first. This call is to be either accepted or rejected. This is an initiative by legislators and there is a certain procedure to follow. I find it impossible to say anything before it has been completed," Peskov said.

In reply to a follow-on question on whether the Communist Party might address the people with such a draft, the Kremlin official said that any political party was free to do so.

Earlier, on January 19, the Gennady Zyuganov-led Communist Party faction submitted a draft to the State Duma addressed to President Vladimir Putin calling for recognizing the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics. The draft states that for the past eight years the people of the self-proclaimed republics have lived under a barrage from small and large-caliber weapons, according to the UN sources more than 10,000 people have been killed and more than 50,000 injured, and the Ukrainian authorities have established a total economic blockade of the DPR and LPR.

The State Duma’s law directorate said in its conclusion that according to the lower house’s rules of procedure all draft messages concerning foreign policy issues must be considered by the State Duma’s international affairs committee and the committee on CIS affairs, Eurasian integration and ties with compatriots first. In the meantime, the opinion of both committees is absent from the package of submitted documents.