LUGANSK, July 10. /TASS/. State Duma Committee on International Affairs Chairman Leonid Slutsky on Saturday said liberated areas of Ukraine should hold referendums of about their future status at the same time.

"The people of the Lugansk republic and no one else should determine the need for a referendum [on joining Russia] and the time of possibly holding it ... This is a sovereign decision of a sovereign country, it may be made in the near future, if you ask for my personal point of view," he said at a news conference following a visit to the LPR. "When that could be? I will express my purely personal point of view that, probably, if other regions liberated from Nazism want to hold a referendum on the future of their territory, their republic, then it would make sense to do this together, jointly."

Slutsky is also the leader of the LDPR, and he led the party’s delegation on a visit to LPR.

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu on July 3 told Russian President Vladimir Putin that the LPR had been liberated. LPR head Leonid Pasechnik has said the republic could hold a referendum about joining Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on February 21 announced the recognition of the sovereignty of the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics. On February 24 Putin announced a special military operation in response to a request for help by the heads of the Donbass republics.