Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on the provision of humanitarian support to the population of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. The document was published on Monday on the official portal of legal information.

As noted in the decree, the decision to provide support was made “in order to protect human and civil rights and freedoms, to provide humanitarian support to the population of certain areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine and to prevent a further decline in living standards amid the ongoing economic blockade and new coronavirus infection “.

The document emphasizes that the decision to provide support was made by the President of the Russian Federation, “being guided by the generally recognized principles and norms of international humanitarian law.”

According to the decree, Putin instructed the Russian government to take a number of measures within a month to soften the conditions for admitting goods from the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics to the Russian markets. We are talking, among other things, about the participation of such goods in public procurement on a par with Russian ones. “The Government of the Russian Federation, within a month, provide, as an exception, for a period until a political settlement of the situation in certain areas of Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine on the basis of the Minsk agreements <…> admission on equal terms with goods of Russian origin of goods originating from these areas, in order to implement purchases of goods to meet state and municipal needs and purchases of goods by certain types of legal entities, “the decree says.