According to the Russian envoy to London, Russia will defeat Ukrainian forces throughout the eastern Donbas region and is unlikely to leave a sizable portion of the country along the country’s southern coast.
Since the invasion on February 24, Russian forces have seized control of a sizable area above Crimea, which they annexed in 2014, and are gradually driving Ukrainian forces out of two east Ukrainian rebel territories that Russia has recognized as separate republics.
Russian Ambassador Andrei Kelin responded when asked how the conflict may end, saying that Ukraine forces would be driven out of all of Donbas and that it was difficult to imagine Russian and Russian-backed forces leaving the southern part of the country.
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“We are going to liberate all of the Donbas,” Kelin said in an interview in his London residence where Winston Churchill used to discuss World War Two strategy with Josef Stalin’s ambassador.
“Of course it is difficult to predict the withdrawal of our forces from the southern part of Ukraine because we have already experience that after withdrawal, provocations start and all the people are being shot and all that.”
According to Kelin, Ukraine would eventually have to choose whether to make peace with Russia or “continue slipping down this hill” to ruin.
