The deputy commander of Russia’s central military district stated on Friday that during the second phase of what it terms its special military operation, Russia wants to gain full control of Donbas and southern Ukraine.
Deputy commander Rustam Minnekayev’s declaration is one of the most comprehensive about Moscow’s latest intentions in Ukraine, implying that Moscow has no plans to end its attack there anytime soon.
Minnekayev did not identify them, but Odesa and Mykolayiv, two significant Ukrainian cities in southern Ukraine, remain under Ukrainian control.
According to the news agencies Interfax and TASS, he stated that complete control of southern Ukraine would facilitate Russian access to Moldova’s pro-Russian breakaway province of Transdniestria, which borders Ukraine and which Kyiv worries may be used as a launchpad for further operations.
Kyiv claimed earlier this month that a regional airfield was being prepared to host planes and be used by Moscow to fly in Ukraine-bound troops, claims refuted by Moldova’s defense ministry and Transnistria’s leadership.
“Control over the south of Ukraine is another path to Transdniestria, where there is also evidence of the oppression of the Russian-speaking community,” Minnekayev said at a gathering in Russia’s central Sverdlovsk area, according to the TASS news agency.
Minnekayev was not mentioned as having provided any proof or specifics about the alleged oppression.
He was quoted as saying that Russia intended to build a land corridor connecting Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula it annexed in 2014, and Donbas in eastern Ukraine.
The remaining Ukrainian fighters in the Donbass port city of Mariupol have taken up residence in a massive industrial complex that President Vladimir Putin has ordered to be blockaded rather than attacked. Mariupol is located between Russian separatist-controlled territory and Crimea. Its acquisition would allow Russia to establish a link between the two regions.
According to Russia’s RIA news agency, Minnekayev stated that media stories of Russian military setbacks were inaccurate.
“The media is currently focusing on some of our military forces’ failings. This, however, is not the case. The tactics of Ukrainian units in the early days were aimed to ensure that, after pulling ahead, specific groups of Russian troops fell into pre-planned ambushes and were killed “according to RIA, he stated.
“However, the Russian armed forces soon adjusted and switched tactics.”
He also added, according to RIA, that daily missile and other assaults against Ukrainian forces meant Russia could inflict substantial damage without losing troops.
On February 24, Russia dispatched tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine in what it described as an operation to undermine its southern neighbor’s military capabilities and weed out “dangerous nationalists.”
Ukraine’s soldiers have resisted, and the West has slapped Russia with sweeping sanctions in an attempt to force it to remove its men.
