Putin: Russia will liberate Donbass in any case, by military means or otherwise

The President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, assured this Thursday that his country will liberate the Donbass region under any circumstances. “Either we liberate these territories by force, or the Ukrainian troops abandon them and stop killing people there,” the leader stated in an interview with India Today. In this regard, he recalled that for eight years Russia did not recognize the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. Those republics had declared their independence, but “we were trying to build relations between the rest of Ukraine and these republics,” he said.

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“When we understood that it was impossible, that they were simply being destroyed, we were forced to recognize them. And not simply recognize them as part of their territory, but within the administrative borders that existed in the Soviet era and, later, during the era of independent Ukraine,” Putin detailed. “We immediately told Ukraine, to the Ukrainian troops: ‘The people do not want to live with you. They went to the referendum and voted for independence. Withdraw your troops and there will be no military action.’ No, they prefer war,” he explained. In recent weeks, strategically relevant advances by Russian troops were recorded. In the Kharkiv province, the key cities of Kupiansk and Volchansk were liberated. The capture of the city of Krasnoarmeisk (known in Ukraine as Pokrovsk), in the Donetsk People’s Republic, and of several localities in Zaporozhie, where Russian forces are already fighting to liberate the city of Guliaipole, an important Ukrainian stronghold in the area, was also reported. According to Putin, the initiative is in the hands of the Russian forces, who “are increasing pressure along the entire front line”. Moscow’s proposal envisions Kyiv completely withdrawing its troops from the people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk and from the provinces of Zaporozhie and Kherson (incorporated into Russia after popular referendums in 2022) and recognizing these territories, as well as Crimea and Sevastopol, as subjects of the Russian Federation. In addition, neutrality, non-alignment, as well as the denuclearization, demilitarization, and denazification of Ukraine must be guaranteed.