Kiev Not to Allow Implementation of Abkhazia Scenario in Donbass

The Kiev authorities will not allow the establishment of an independent state in Ukraine's eastern Donbass region like it had happened in Georgia in 2008, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said Tuesday.

KIEV (Sputnik) — Earlier in the day, Alexander Zakharchenko, the leader of east Ukraine's self-proclaimed People's Republic of Donetsk (DPR), proposed a three-year transition period toward a new state called Malorossiya ("Little Russia") as a way to settle the conflict in the region.

"Just at the moment when the Ukrainian delegation is in Georgia, the Kremlin is trying to act out the Abkhazia scenario in Donbass. We will not let them," Klimkin wrote on Twitter.

Just as the Ukrainian delegation is in Georgia, the Kremlin is trying to do in Donbas what it has done in Abkhazia, we will not let them

— Pavlo Klimkin (@PavloKlimkin) 18 июля 2017 г.

Speaking of Abkhazia, the minister referred to the Russia-Georgia conflict, which took place in August 2008, when Georgia launched a military offensive against self-proclaimed republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, prompting Russia to interfere to protect its numerous citizens living in the region. After the five-day war with Georgia, Russia recognized both republics as independent states.

Abkhazia and South Ossetia declared independence from Georgia in early 1990s, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

The Donbass conflict erupted in April 2014 as a local counter-reaction to the West-sponsored Maidan coup in Kiev that had toppled President Viktor Yanukovych in February. Residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions held independence referendums and proclaimed the People's Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. Kiev has since been conducting a military operation, encountering stiff local resistance.

In February 2015, Kiev forces and Donbass independence supporters signed a peace agreement in the Belarusian capital of Minsk. The deal stipulates a full ceasefire, weapons withdrawal from the line of contact in Donbass, as well as constitutional reforms that would give a special status to the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics. Despite the agreement brokered by the Normandy Four states (Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine), the ceasefire regime is regularly violated, with both sides accusing each other of multiple breaches, undermining the terms of the accord.