Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republic: successful state-building?

The goal of this thesis was to analyze the unilaterally declared entities of Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republic and determine, whether they should be considered de facto state or puppet state. Using the E.Berg's, E.Kuusk's methodology I was able to measure the position in the international system, certain aspects of internal and external sovereignty, considering the importance of the external actor, the Russian Federation. De facto state is established through local support and its declared goal is to gain the international recognition, meanwhile puppet state is established through military conflict and its dependene on the external actor, sponsor state, reaches such a degree, it can be considered a covert occupation. Independence is an important factor in the actual functioning of the entities. If the formal independence hides the actual independence, entity will be considered a puppet state. In this case both entities meet all the criteria of B.Ivanel's puppet state and formal independence hides the actual independence. Their existence is guaranteed by the sponsor state, the Russian Federation. The dependence on material support (financial, military) is of vital importance. Without the support entities would not be able to provide the basic needs for the population and would have been..