THE leaders of Donetsk and Lugansk warned yesterday that changes to a Ukrainian law on granting regional autonomy could prompt an end to the ceasefire in the country.

Alexander Zakharchenko and Igor Plotnitsky, who head the two Donbass regions controlled by anti-fascist forces resisting the Kiev regime, said amendments to a Bill passed by the Ukrainian parliament on Tuesday marked “another attempt to get out of the Minsk agreement.”

“We agreed to a special status for the Donbass for a renewed Ukraine, although our people wanted total independence,” they said in a joint statement. “But Ukraine did not renew itself.”

A key objection to the revised law is a clause insisting that Kiev authorities conduct elections in the Donbass before any special status can take effect.

Mr Zakharchenko and Mr Plotnitsky won the leadership of their regions in elections on November 2 with 78 and 63 per cent of the vote respectively, but Ukraine does not accept those elections as valid.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said granting autonomy without Kiev supervising its own elections in separatist areas would “legitimise unlawful rebel governments.”

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Ukraine’s “decree” meant “only when these territories are led by somebody suitable for Kiev will special status come into effect.”

nUkraine’s Communist Party denounced yesterday a new government Bill aimed at curbing protests.

The Bill, which would see participation in “unauthorised” demonstrations punished by up to three years’ imprisonment, was a bid to “legitimise violence against anyone who opposes war, militarisation and the rehabilitation of fascism,” the party said.