KIEV, February 22. /TASS/. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has said he has received a request from the Foreign Ministry for severing diplomatic relations with Russia.

"I have received a request for severing diplomatic relations with Russia. I will study it," he told a joint news conference with Estonia’s visiting leader Alar Karis on Tuesday.

Earlier, Ukraine’s ambassador to the UN, Sergey Kislitsa, said, when asked about the possibility of severing diplomatic relations with Russia, that the decision to be made must not be emotional or dramatic." The Ukrainian government, he said, would make "well-considered decisions."

Russian President Vladimir Putin on February 21 declared that Russia recognized the sovereignty of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics. Treaties on friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance were signed with their leaders. Putin instructed the Russian Foreign Ministry to establish diplomatic relations with Donetsk and Lugansk and asked the Defense Ministry to maintain peace in their territories.

In September 2021, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said that diplomatic relations with Russia should have been severed in 2014. In January 2021, he said that such a step would be tantamount to "capital punishment." For this, he added "something mega-catastrophic is to happen".