THE president of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) proposed a new state yesterday as a successor to “failed” Ukraine.

Alexander Zakharchenko said there should be a three-year transition to a new republic of “Malorossiya” (Little Russia) as a solution to the civil war sparked in eastern Ukraine by the 2014 coup in Kiev.

He said debate in Donetsk had “come to the conclusion that Ukraine has shown itself as a failed state.”