Meeting in Munich on February 18, the foreign ministers of Russia, Ukraine, and mediators Germany and France agreed to a new push to implement a cease-fire in eastern Ukraine, where Russia-backed separatists hold parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, to begin on February 20. The executive order, which was posted Saturday on the Kremlin’s website, said that those living in areas of southeast Ukraine outside of Kiev’s control “can enter and leave the Russian Federation without applying for visas upon showing identification documents (birth certificates for children under the age of 16), issued by the corresponding authorities which are valid in the said districts.”

Those authorities are the Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic, the heavily militarized separatist governments that appeared in 2014 after a revolution in Kiev and Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Speaking to reporters in Munich after meeting with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence on February 18, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Putin’s order was "more evidence of the Russian occupation and Russia's violation of international law."
At the Munich Security Conference, a truce between Russian-backed separatists and the Ukrainian army, per the Minsk Protocol, takes effect Monday. Pending a permanent political agreement, Russian President Vladimir Putin orders that civil registration documents issued in separatist-held areas of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine be temporarily recognized. Ukrainian authorities say this violates provisions in the Minsk agreement. This is the third such agreement because the previous two in 2014 and 2015 were violated. Low-level fighting and artillery fire never fully stopped.