Russian President Vladimir Putin today ordered Russian forces to continue their offensive in eastern Ukraine after capturing the entire Luhansk region.
Russian forces “must carry out their missions in accordance with the plans that have already been approved,” Putin said during a press conference with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.
“I hope that in the areas everything will happen as it happened in Lugansk,” he added.
The Russian president's remarks come a day after he announced the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the strategically important city of Lisitsansk, a seizure that completes their control of Lugansk Oblast by Russian forces and pro-Russian separatists.
Lugansk Oblast and the neighboring Donetsk region form the Donbass in eastern Ukraine that Moscow's forces intend to capture in its entirety.
Russian Defense Minister Shoigu said Moscow's forces are in the process of “ demining the city of Lisitsansk”.
Putin also said that two of his generals, Alexander Lapin and Esendula Abatchev, would be honored as “Heroes of Russia” for their role in the fighting in Ukraine.< /p>
The capture of Lisitsansk, along with the city of Severodonetsk, allows Russian forces and separatists to move more easily westward to the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, the two largest Donbas cities still controlled by the Ukrainian army.
Earlier today a senior separatist official, Vitaly Kiselyov, said that forces from Moscow were now advancing from two directions towards the site of Shiversk, on the road to Sloviansk and t Kramatorsk.
Source: APE-MPE
