MOSCOW, February 22. /TASS/. Special committees of the State Duma - on international affairs, as well as on CIS affairs, Eurasian integration, and relations with compatriots - on Tuesday morning unanimously recommended that the lower house ratifies the agreements with the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR) on friendship, cooperation, and mutual aid.
Tensions escalated along the line of contact in eastern Ukraine on the morning of February 17. The self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR, LPR) reported the heaviest shelling by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in months. On February 18, the heads of the LPR and DPR, Leonid Pasechnik and Denis Pushilin, announced the evacuation of the republics’ residents to Russia. General mobilization was ordered in the Donbass republics on February 19.
On February 21, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed decrees at the ceremony in the Kremlin on recognizing the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. Putin met with DPR and LPR leaders, Denis Pushilin and Leonid Pasechnik, and signed with them the treaties on friendship, cooperation, and mutual aid between Russia and both republics.