TSINKHVAL, November 14. /TASS/. South Ossetia’s Foreign Ministry has started preparations for establishing diplomatic relations with the self-proclaimed People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk (DPR and LPR), Minister David Sanakoyev told TASS on Friday.

“Donetsk and Luhansk need our support urgently and we will do our best to ensure it,” Sanakoyev said. “Considering a difficult situation in the republics, we have taken great responsibility in approaching these issues as we know firsthand what it means to make plans amid a war.”

South Ossetia recognized the DPR and LPR independence in June.

On November 3, South Ossetia’s President Leonid Tibilov said that his republic recognized the elections held in the Donetsk and Luhansk republics as legitimate.

On November 11 Tibilov said that he instructed the Foreign Ministry to establish diplomatic relations with the self-proclaimed republics in Ukraine’s war-torn east.

South Ossetia declared itself independent from Georgia in 2008 after Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili had unleashed an offensive against that breakaway region.