MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Wednesday that its “special military operation” in Ukraine should continue at least until it took control of eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
In a call with reporters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted that the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) – a breakaway Russian-backed entity that has been fighting Ukrainian forces since 2014 – controls only part of the wider territory it claims.
“It is therefore necessary, at a minimum, to liberate the entire territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” he said.
Russia has framed its military campaign in Ukraine as necessary to protect Russian speakers in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, of which Donetsk makes up half, from the “genocide” committed by Ukraine. Both Kyiv and Western countries say this is a fig leaf for imperial-style land grabs.
Although Russia already controls almost all of the Luhansk region, and the other half of Donbass, it owns only about 60% of the Donetsk region.
Moscow-backed entities in Donetsk and Luhansk, along with two other Russian-occupied regions in southern Ukraine, are seeking to become part of Russia after they completed on Tuesday what Kyiv and Western governments called sham referendums on joining Russia.
(Report from Reuters)
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