Russian President Vladimir Putin will certainly pay a visit to Donbass, but the date for such a trip hasn’t been set yet, Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov has said.
“As for the president's trip [to the People’s Republics of Donetsk (DPR) and Lugansk (LPR)], I have no doubts that when the right time comes such a visit will take place,” Peskov told the newspaper Izvestia on Tuesday.
He also said that Moscow has “vast plans” in terms of rebuilding Donbass, which has ended up being the main battlefield in the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
“You can see that construction is underway, and new facilities are being commissioned. Vigorous efforts are being undertaken in order to restore all essential utility systems. Those are water pipelines, energy supply, social facilities. Hard work is underway, and many many thousands of people are involved in it,” the spokesman pointed out.
The most high-ranking officials from Moscow to visit Donbass so far have been Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, who inspected the Russian troops in both the DPR and LPR in July, and parliament speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, who traveled to Lugansk the same month with a group of MPs.
Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, citing Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk agreements, designed to give the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. The protocols, brokered by Germany and France, were first signed in 2014. Former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko has since admitted that Kiev’s main goal was to use the ceasefire to buy time and “create powerful armed forces.”
In February 2022, the Kremlin recognized the Donbass republics as independent states and demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join any Western military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked.