Russia admitted this Friday for the first time that wants to create a land corridor from Donbas to the annexed Crimean peninsula and revealed that his war plan does not stop there, but includes taking the south to unite it with the pro-Russian separatist region of Transnistria, in Moldova, according to a high military command.
“Since the start of the second phase of the special operation, which began literally two days ago, one of the tasks of the Russian Army is establish full control over Donbas and southern Ukraine,” said the acting commander of the Russian Central Military District, Major General Rustam Minnekeyev.
The Government of Ukraine immediately denounced Russian “imperialism” and stressed that Russia has revealed its true intentions of its military offensive, which is not, as initially announced by the “denazification” from the neighboring country. “They stopped hiding it. Today, the Russian Looters, Rapists and Murderers Command recognized that the goal of the ‘second phase’ of the war it is not a victory over the mythical nazisbut simply the occupation of eastern and southern Ukraine,” the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said.
“(Russian) imperialism as it is“, he stressed. The head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Andriy Yermak, recalled that “many of the Kremlin’s plans have already failed thanks to the work of the Army and the Ukrainian people.”
Full control over eastern and southern Ukraine “will make it possible to establish a land corridor to Crimea and gain influence over vital facilities of the Ukrainian economy and the Black Sea ports through which agricultural and metallurgical products are shipped to other countries.” , according to the Russian Major General. But what’s more, Minnekéyev affirmed, according to the official TASS agency, “control over the south of Ukraine is also a way to access Transnistria where acts of discrimination against Russian-speaking residents are also confirmed”.
The so-called “genocide“of the pro-Russian population in Donbas has been one of the arguments put forward by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to launch his military campaign in the Ukraine. Transnistria, a territory of barely half a million inhabitants, mostly Slavs (Russians and Ukrainians), broke ties with Moldova after an armed conflict in 1992-1993 in which it had Russian help.
Under an agreement for the peaceful settlement of the conflict, Russia called more than 2,000 troops to guarantee peace. On March 5, the separatist territory asked for its independence to be recognized. “They (the Russians) are not going to stop.
The Russian Central Military District Command announced the next victim of Russian aggression,” the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said. “After taking control of southern Ukraine, Russia plans to invade Moldovawhere they say Russian-speakers are being oppressed,” he stressed. The Kremlin has neither confirmed nor denied the major general’s words.
Until now, both Putin and his defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, had only talked about the “main” objective of the Russian military campaign in this second phase being “complete liberation of Donbas“, made up of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, whose independence the president recognized days before launching the “so-called special military operation”.
Nor have they talked about the land corridor, much less plans to take the south or reach Transnistria.
kyiv has stated from the beginning that Russia’s goal is create a land corridor from Crimea to Donbasbut Minnekeev’s words imply going much further west on the peninsula, from the city of Kherson, which they already control, to Odessa and from there to the border with Moldova.
In the south and east of Ukraine, “the occupiers continue to do everything possible to find a reason to talk about at least some wins“Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said last night.
“They are building up forces, bringing new battalion tactical groups to our land. They are even trying to start the so-called mobilization in the occupied regions of Ukraine,” he said. None of these steps will help Russia. they can only delay the inevitable: the moment when the invaders will have to leave our territory. In particular Mariupol, a city that continues to resist, despite everything the occupiers say,” he emphasized. On Thursday, Putin and Shoigu celebrated the “liberation of Mariupol,” in the Donetsk region, although they still resist at the Azovstal about 2,000 Ukrainian troops and about a thousand civilians.
The Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, Vadym Skibitsky, said today that, in general, the Russian Armed Forces are finalizing the regrouping of troops. Now they are trying, he added, to identify “in all directions” the most vulnerable positions of the Ukrainian Army.
In Lugansk, the pro-Russian militias assured today that “control up to 90% of the territory” of the region, a figure that the head of the Ukrainian military administration in Lugansk, Serhiy Gaidai, placed on Wednesday at “80%”.
According to the report of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, on the front line in the Lugansk region, Russian troops are trying to advance in Rubizhne and the Ukrainian Army
Source: Lasexta
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