MOSCOW, December 16. /TASS/. A senior Russian lawmaker has called on the Ukrainian authorities to reckon with the opinion of the self-proclaimed republics in Donbass while conducting decentralization.

Commenting on a relevant bill submitted by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky to the Verkhovna Rada, or Ukraine’s national parliament, Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the international committee of Russia’s State Duma lower parliament house, said this document requires a thorough analysis.

"Altogether, I think the fact that it lack a clear definition of the Donbass republics’ special status can be interpreted as a contradiction to provision 11 of the Minsk agreements that binds to carry out a constitutional reform on decentralization and adoption of a permanent law on the special status of certain districts of the Donetsk and Lugansk. This is what is already obvious at the moment," he said.

"Apart from that, I am convinced that the reform should take into account the DRP’s and LPR’s (Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics - TASS) opinion," Slutsky said, adding that the Minsk agreements "today are the only document agreed and signed by Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk." So, in his words, "such loose and flexible interpretation may repel the Donbass republics again."

The Russian lawmaker expressed the hope that "the current Ukrainian authorities understand it and will not indulge in recurrent sabotaging their political commitments under the Minsk accords." "Let us wait and see what they do next," he added.

Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada on Monday published on its website President Zelensky’s bill on amendments to the country’s constitution to decentralize power. The document lacks any provisions on Donbass’ special status, which is stipulated by the Minsk agreements.

As follows from the explanatory note to the bill, it was elaborated in compliance with the European Charter of Local Self-Government. The bill introduces a three-level system of local self-government. Among its major novelties are the shift of the competences of regional and district state administrations to executive committees of elected regional and district councils and the establishment of the institute of prefects who are to be appointed by the head of state to oversee the legal compliance in territorial communities.

A reform of local self-government began in Ukraine in 2014 under the then President Pyotr Poroshenko but was not completed as the Verkhovna Rada has been failing to introduce the corresponding amendments.