Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday announced the end of diplomatic ties between Kyiv and Damascus after Moscow ally Syria recognised the independence of eastern Ukraine’s two separatist republics. The breakaway states of Donetsk and Lugansk, whose independence Moscow recognised in February, are situated in the Donbas region at the centre of Russia’s invasion and have escaped Kyiv’s control since 2014. Syria provoked Ukraine’s ire after becoming the first state other than Russia to recognise the two separatist republics earlier on Wednesday. “There will no longer be relations b…