Putin will visit troops in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine that Russia claims to have annexed

On Saturday, the Kremlin told Russian news agencies that Russian President Vladimir Putin would visit the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine, which Russia claims to have annexed.

99% of voters in Donetsk and 98% in Lugansk supported joining Russia in referendums in September that have been widely denounced as a ‘sham’.

Speaking to Russian news agencies about the president’s visit to Donbas, Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov said: “In due time, this will happen, of course.”

‘This is a region of the Russian Federation.’

Peskov, who was Press Secretary to the Russian Prime Minister from 2008 to 2012, and has been the Kremlin’s Press Secretary since 2012, did not say when the president will visit the region.

Kremlin spokesman Peskov said the president would visit Donbas “in due course” on Saturday.

Peskov also told local news agencies today that Russia would not support a $60 price cap for oil, formally agreed by the EU, the G7 nations and Australia on Friday night.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the price cap would hurt Russia’s oil revenues and stabilize global energy prices.

Critics have said this will not significantly affect Russia’s ability to finance its war in Ukraine.

The resource-rich area of ​​Donbas in eastern Ukraine has been partly under the control of disputed Russian-backed entities, the DPR and LPR, since 2014.

Moscow officials claim that 99% of voters in Donetsk and 98% in Luhansk support joining Russia

The Donbas has significant coal reserves and remains strategically and symbolically important to Russia.

Depopulated areas in eastern Ukraine underwent ‘Russification’ during the second half of the 20th century, with Russia encouraging the migration of Russian peasants to the Crimea and Donbas, as well as the adoption of the Russian language, schools, and cultural institutions.

Despite attempts to suppress Ukrainian culture in the region, most Ukrainians, including the people of Donbas and Crimea, supported independence from the Soviet Union during its fall at the turn of the century.

However, after Ukraine’s anti-Russian Dignity Revolution in 2014, Russian separatist movements in Donetsk and Luhansk, Donbas declared Ukrainian independence with Russian backing.

Alina Kabaeva, 39, who is believed to be Putin’s longtime mistress, 70, made a rare public appearance in Sochi, Russia today to open a new gymnastics centre.

Putin attends a meeting with the II Congress of Young Scientists in Sochi, December 1, 2022.

Russia soon after invaded Crimea while the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) entered an eight-year war with Ukraine.

97% of voters apparently voted join Russia in the 2014 Crimean referendum, which was not recognized by the US, EU or Ukraine.

Center after the invasion, 41% of voters in Crimea, 33% in Donetsk, and 24% in Lugansk supported union with Russia.

Russian President Putin recognized both the DPR and the LPR as independent just days before invading Ukraine on February 24, 2022, in part to “protect” pro-Russian entities in the Donbas.

Russia formally annexed areas in and around Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in southern and eastern Ukraine in September 2022.

the four regions voted join Russia in ‘fake’ referendums at the end of September 2022.

Russia claimed that 99% and 98% of the votes cast in Donetsk and Lugansk, respectively, supported joining Russia.

Russia faced a similar row over vote rigging in 2011, when around 50,000 protesters gathered around the Kremlin and demanded a rerun of parliamentary elections.

During the March 2012 presidential election, protesters in Novosibirsk, Siberia complained that the vote count in the region totaled 146% of the population.