Russia aims to take southern Ukraine in Donbas operation, deputy commander says

The statement from Rustam Minnekayev, the deputy commander of Russia's central military district, suggests Russia does not plan to wind down its offensive anytime soon.

Russia plans to take full control of Donbas and southern Ukraine during the second phase of what it calls its special military operation, the deputy commander of Russia’s central military district said on Friday, Russian news agencies reported.

The statement from Rustam Minnekayev, the deputy commander, is one of the most detailed about Moscow’s latest ambitions in Ukraine and suggests Russia does not plan to wind down its offensive there anytime soon.

Minnekayev did not mention them by name, but two major Ukrainian cities in southern Ukraine, Odesa and Mykolayiv, remain under Ukrainian control.

The Interfax and TASS news agencies cited him as saying that full control of southern Ukraine would improve Russian access to Moldova’s pro-Russian breakaway region of Transdniestria, which borders Ukraine and which Kyiv fears could be used as a launch pad for new attacks against it.

Kyiv earlier this month said that an airfield in the region was being prepared to receive aircraft and be used by Moscow to fly in Ukraine-bound troops, allegations Moldova’s defence ministry and authorities in Transdniestria denied.

“Control over the south of Ukraine is another way to Transdniestria, where there is also evidence that the Russian-speaking population is being oppressed,” the TASS news agency quoted Minnekayev as saying at a meeting in Russia’s central Sverdlovsk region.

Minnekayev was not cited as providing any evidence for or details of that alleged oppression.

He was quoted as saying that Russia planned to forge a land corridor between Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula which it annexed in 2014, and Donbas in eastern Ukraine.