The Kremlin said its “main goal” in Russia’s war with Ukraine is the “safety” of people in the eastern Donbas region, on the fourth anniversary of the full-scale invasion.
Dispute over control of Donbas in Ukraine, an industrial heartland that comprises the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, is the biggest issue in peace talks between the two sides.
Ukrainian forces still control around a fifth of Donetsk, including the two key fortress cities of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk.
Kyiv rejects Russian demands that it cede total control of the Donbas on moral and constitutional grounds.
One of Russia’s claimed motives for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, launched on February 24, 2022, is to protect ethnic Russians who it says were facing persecution in the country—an accusation Kyiv denies.
“The main goal is to ensure the safety of people who lived in eastern Ukraine and who were truly in mortal danger,” Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, said of the aims of what the Kremlin calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine.
“That is the main thing,” Peskov said, originally in Russian, state news agency TASS reported.
Peskov also said that Russia’s goals in the war “have not yet been fully achieved, which is why the special military operation is continuing.”
However, he said some of the Kremlin’s goals have been achieved so far, and that Russia would prefer to resolve the issues diplomatically.
Ukraine and its European partners accuse Russia of misleading the U.S., which is attempting to broker a war-ending deal between Kyiv and Moscow, about its desire for peace.
This is a breaking news story. Updates to follow.
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