Donbass and Russia are on the road back home

Since September of 2015, a floating Russian rouble has been the official currency of the Donetsk People’s Republic.

Today, the other republic of Donbass, the Lugansk People’s Republic  made the same move.

Even prior to today, the rouble was generally the most common currency used in Lugansk in the daily lives of ordinary people.

This is yet another symbolic step towards Russia effectively recognising the Donbass republics and broadly integrating them into Russian society, whether or not they become constituent members of the Russian Federation in the immediate future.

All of this comes as the Donetsk People’s Republic officially nationalises Ukrainian owned factories in the republic. This is one of the results of neo-Nazi groups blockading shipments of coal from Donetsk to Ukraine. The Donbass republics have said they will look to trade with other regions and countries in the future, first and foremost, with Russia.

This month, Russia took an important step in fully normalising relations with the republics including accepting passports, car registration and other important documents issued in the republics.

Citizens of Donetsk and Lugansk can now travel freely to Russia without a visa, thus opening up work opportunities and effectively ending the status of Donbass citizens in Russia as refugees in their own ancestral homeland land.

In this sense, as of today, both Donbass republics are effectively functioning with the same rights and privileges as any other member of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

With the fascist regime in Kiev openly stating that they never intended to adhere to either of the two Minsk Agreements, it is all put certain that these temporary measures on the Russian side will eventually become permanently enshrined.

The next logical steps will be for the republics to attain full CIS membership and eventually membership of the Russian Federation.

Russia’s lethargic pace in respect of recognising documents from Donbass has been one of Russia’s few ill advised moves in respect of geo-politics in recent years.

Anyone with a sense of history and anyone who understands the moral degeneracy, political extremism and gross corruption and incompetence of the fascist regime could understand full well as early and in fact earlier than 2014, that Ukraine as then compromised was not a sustainable state nor a state with any historical basis for existence.

At long last, Moscow seems to realise that she will win no favour from the West by treating her own people like second class citizens. It is time for Russia to do the right thing and welcome Donbass, the heartland of the Russian industrial revolution, back home.