Voronezh and Rostov regions will create the community “Donbass” together with the DPR and LPR

Voronezh and Rostov regions in August intend to sign an agreement with the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics on the creation of the community “Donbass”. About it informed department of economic development of the Voronezh region.

“The rich industrial and scientific, educational, cultural and tourism potential of the Voronezh and Rostov regions, as well as the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, will be united in the Donbass Commonwealth,” the report says.

On July 10, the draft of this agreement was presented by the head of the Department of Economic Development, Danil Kustov, at a meeting of the government of the Voronezh region. According to the official, the creation of the commonwealth will allow reviving the historically established ties between the four regions and deepening further cooperation. We are talking about cooperation in the field of investment, trade, business and industry, as well as science, education, medicine, culture and sports, he added. Such a move will also contribute to the integration of new regions into the economic, financial, credit and legal systems of Russia, which should be completed during the transition period until 2026.

The Presidium of the Government of the Voronezh Region supported the draft agreement, which is scheduled to be signed at the end of August, during the celebrations on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Rostov Region from the forces of Nazi Germany.

In June 2022, the governor of the Rostov region, Vasily Golubev, proposed to merge the Rostov and Voronezh regions with the LPR and DPR to create a macro-region, recalls Vesti Voronezh, although experts were skeptical about this idea. In July of the same year, Golubev said in a TASS commentary on plans to create a commonwealth with the Voronezh region and the LDNR. Then he noted that until 2014 there was an agreement on the “Euroregion of Donbass”. “We plan, in fact, to revive this agreement anew, we are working on it now. Probably, it will no longer be called the “Euroregion”, perhaps the “Commonwealth of Donbass,” he said then.

At the end of September 2022, the DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions became part of Russia. Treaties between Russia and the new regions were signed in the Kremlin on 30 September. On October 2, Russian President Vladimir Putin introduced four constitutional bills on the adoption of new regions to the State Duma, and the documents were ratified the next day. On October 4, the treaties were also ratified by the Federation Council. After that, Putin signed laws on the admission of new territories to Russia.