At a bilateral summit in Helsinki, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested his American counterpart Donald Trump to hold a "referendum" on the temporarily occupied Donbass to "help resolve the military conflict in Eastern Ukraine". Two people who attended the meeting of leaders tet-a-tet reported this to Bloomberg, LIGABusinessInform writes.
According to Putin, such a "referendum" should be held "under the aegis of the international community". Putin told some Russian diplomats that he had floated the proposal during the summit in Helsinki on Monday, but agreed not to disclose the plan publicly so that Trump could give it some thought.
The White House did not respond to Bloomberg's request for comments on this topic. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told that, during the summit in Helsinki, "some new ideas were discussed" regarding the situation in Ukraine and that "they will be worked on". He did not comment on the details of the reported referendum proposal.
As previously reported, at the same press conference, Putin actually admitted that it was Russia that organized and conducted an illegitimate referendum in the territory of a sovereign state on the Crimea's joining the Russian Federation. "We held a referendum", - Putin said.