Moscow:
The Kremlin vowed on Wednesday to take back land lost to Kiev in the Ukrainian regions it has annexed, saying the areas will be Russian “forever”.
“The given areas will be taken back,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters after Moscow suffered a series of military defeats.
He said the regions annexed by Moscow “will be Russian forever and will not be returned”.
He spoke when Moscow lost several important cities – such as the railway junction of Lyman – in eastern Ukraine, within the regions it had annexed.
Russia has struggled to determine the exact boundaries of the territory it is annexing, with the Moscow armed forces not fully controlling any of them.
Peskov said Russia “will continue to consult with the people who will express their will to join Russia”.
He said the documents Moscow signed last week on annexing Ukraine’s Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions were clear.
“It’s all in the legal wording,” he said.
“The decree refers to the territory at the time of adoption.”
Moscow does not control large parts of the Zaporizhzhya region, as well as the north of the Kherson region and the northwest of the Donetsk region.
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