On the eve of Angela Merkel and François Hollande's meeting with Vladimir Putin in Moscow, the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) made a concrete push for Putin's vision of eastern Ukraine. The self-proclaimed, largely unrecognized DPR moved closer to unifying with the other region that has forcefully broken away by declaring itself the legal successor of a 1918 self-proclaimed Soviet republic. "We, the deputies of the Donetsk People's Republic, aware of our responsibility before the past and paving the road for the future, proclaim the continuation of the tradition of the Donetsk-Krivoy-Rog Republic and announce that the state of Donetsk...
