Moscow. February 22. INTERFAX-AVN - The issue of the borders of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics is a matter of the future, it will be resolved, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Tuesday.
"Now we need to solve other issues. And he will certainly solve this issue somehow," she said on the Dozhd TV channel (recognized in Russia as a foreign media agent).
"The war has been going on for eight years, and the border issue did not arise today. And not only so that it was beautifully demarcated, and border posts were put there. This issue was precisely connected with life and death: because this line was recorded in the documents, because there was a withdrawal of forces from this line, because observers recorded shelling coming from this line. This is an issue that has been discussed and fixed, and has been important all these years," Zakharova said.
She stressed: "It did not arise today. Of course, you will not be able to solve the issue of delimitation and demarcation of borders in an hour. It's impossible. It is impossible to do this even for States that are good-neighborly and friendly, and which have no problems. This is a question of the future. But the border issue did not arise today."
Answering a clarifying question whether the issue of borders is an issue that will be resolved, Zakharova said: "Yes, of course."
On February 21, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree recognizing the independence of the DPR and the LPR. The parties signed an agreement on friendship and cooperation and mutual assistance. The State Duma and the Federation Council ratified the treaties on February 22. The documents do not indicate in which borders the independence of the LPR and the DPR is recognized.
The question of whether we are talking about recognition in the current, actual borders or in the former administrative borders of these republics was asked by the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov during his conversation with journalists on Tuesday.
"(Recognized) within the boundaries in which they proclaimed themselves. When these two republics were proclaimed," Peskov said.
They clarified with him whether these borders include Mariupol. "I have nothing to add. Within the boundaries in which they exist and have been proclaimed. And they were proclaimed, and they exist," Peskov said.
On Monday, at a meeting of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev said that it was necessary to recognize the independence of Donbass within the borders that had developed before their "occupation by Ukraine."
"It is definitely necessary to recognize these republics, their legal personality, but I would like to make an amendment - to recognize them within the administrative borders in which these republics and the peoples of these republics were before the occupation by the armed forces of Ukraine, namely from Mariupol and ending with those historical borders," Kolokoltsev said.
