Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics

In a statement issued by the Kremlin, Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his “deep condolences”to the relatives and the loved ones of the DPR leader Aleksandr Zakharchenko.
The Russian President called Zakharchenko “a real people’s leader” and “a brave man.” 
He also said that this incident shows that “those, who chose the path of terror, violence and intimidation, do not want to seek a peaceful…solution…and engage in a real dialog with the people living in south-eastern [Ukraine].”

RT and TASS reported on August 31 that the Aleksandr Zacharchenko, the leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, was killed in an explosion that took place in a cafe in Central Donetsk city. The explosion also injured several other top officials who were with him. RT continues in their report:
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In a recent article for The Duran I wrote of how the economic situation in Ukraine appeared once more to be deteriorating, with economic statistics apparently being distorted to conceal the extent of the rise in inflation, making the claimed figure of 2% GDP growth in 2017 unlikely.
In a further sign of a deteriorating economic situation, recent reports from Ukraine speak of rolling electric power blackouts in some regions, suggesting growing energy shortages as the price of oil hikes.

This article was first published by RussiaFeed
On 5th September 2017, during his press conference at the latest BRICS summit in China, President Putin of Russia unexpectedly announced a proposal for the UN Security Council to organise a lightly armed force of peacekeepers to provide protection to observers from the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe) who are patrolling the contact line between the militia in the Donbass and the Ukrainian army.

Russian President Vladimir Putin used his press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to make some of his harshest comments for some time about the situation in Ukraine, and to pronounce the Minsk process which is supposed to lead to a Ukrainian peace settlement all but dead.  He also came close to blaming Merkel for its failure.
In doing so President Putin, whilst continuing to give lip-service to the Minsk Agreement, all but admitted that the chance of it ever being implemented has gone

As Ukraine becomes increasingly engulfed by crisis, the IMF has postponed the decision as to whether or not to provide Ukraine with the latest tranche of its bailout funding.
That decision was supposed to be made today (Monday 20th March 2017).  Instead, without any formal announcement, the IMF put off the decision, giving no date for when it would be made.

Weeks after ultra right radicals began blocking coal deliveries to Ukraine from Donbass, and after weeks of calling on the radicals to end the blockade, Ukraine’s government in the form of Ukraine’s National Defence and Security Council has legalised it, declaring all transport links with Ukraine blocked as of this afternoon.

With the coal blockade still underway, the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics have acted on their threat and have effectively nationalised all remaining Ukrainian owned factories and economic facilities on their territories, though it is being described as a taking of the enterprises into ‘temporary administration’.

The Russian Interfax news agency is reporting that Boris Gryzlov, Russia’s point man in the Ukrainian conflict, has today issued a warning to Kiev that Russia will take unspecified action unless the coal blockade is lifted.
This follows warnings from Moscow that Russia will not allow a humanitarian catastrophe in the Donbass and from the authorities of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics that they will enact a wholesale nationalisation of all Ukrainian owned plants and businesses within the Republics’ territories on 1st March 2017 unless the blockade is lifted.

This article is published with the permission of the author and was first published by The Saker
Putin’s latest move