You're reading: Luhansk region legislature plans to issue Verkhovna Rada ultimatum

Lawmakers in Luhansk region, eastern Ukraine, plan to demand that Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada urgently adopt constitutional amendments that would turn Ukraine into a federal state and grant Russian official status as a second state language.

“If parliament refuses to meet the demands that the deputies of our regional council view as the steps able to help defuse the conflict, the regional council will discuss the possibility of demanding that the Verkhovna Rada assume full responsibility for the situation in the region and dissolve the regional council,” Luhansk region’s legislature said on its Web site on Wednesday, May 14.

“They [Luhansk region lawmakers] simply see no point in continuing to work in the situation when official Kyiv is demonstratively ignoring the demands of the regional council and the entire Luhansk region and the deputies have no opportunity to influence these processes,” it said.