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Russian troops will only enter Donbas if the separatists ask them to, according to a senior official in Putin’s party

The Russian military will only enter the Ukrainian region of Donbas if the separatist leaders ask them to do so, Andrey Turchak, general secretary of the council of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party, said Wednesday in Donetsk, the capital of the Ukrainian province. . Turchak has explained that, in such a scenario, the deployment of the troops would be as a “peacekeeping” force.

The senior official of the Russian ruling party has appeared together with Denis Pushilin, the leader of the Donetsk People’s Republic, the separatist entity that last Monday obtained recognition from Russia, as well as the other self-proclaimed republic in Lugansk, both in the east from Ukraine. Pushilin explained to journalists that the Donbas separatist forces do not seek to expand the territory they control and prefer to peacefully resolve any border demarcation issues with Ukraine. The breakaway republics claim the entire territory of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, but only have effective control of a third of their area.

Both Turchak and Pushilin have denied the presence of Moscow troops in Donbas denounced by the West, which believes that the Russian Army has maintained a covert presence in the area since 2014. On Monday, a witness quoted by the Reuters agency and a reporter from the The same news agency saw columns of military vehicles, including tanks, on the outskirts of the city of Donetsk, a few hours after Putin recognized them as independent states. The armor did not carry visible flags.

On Tuesday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the organization has evidence that Moscow had moved new troops from Russian territory into Donbas. “We have to understand that Russia has been in Donbas for many years, since 2014, but it has been in covert operations, in which they have denied their presence, but the so-called separatists (from Donetsk and Lugansk) have been controlled and supported by troops. by Russian special operations personnel for many years,” Stoltenberg explained. (Reuters)

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