Russian President Vladimir Putin has given the new commander of the Russian military forces in Ukraine a March deadline to seize control of the Donbas region, according to a Ukrainian intelligence spokesman.
Andriy Yusov, a representative of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, told Ukraine’s Freedom TV on Monday that General Valery Gerasimov was ordered to capture the eastern region in Ukraine by March. The news outlet Ukrainska Pravda reported that Yusov also said during the interview that Putin has set similar deadlines in the past without success.
“This is not the first timeframe. It got delayed every time. It will be a year since the start of the full-scale invasion, and a year of them ‘capturing Kyiv in three days.’ They will not succeed this time as well,” Yusov said, as translated by Ukrainska Pravda.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was asked on Tuesday about the alleged March deadline imposed by Putin on Gerasimov for taking the Donbas region, according to the Russian state-run news agency TASS.
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“No, I cannot [comment on it] and have zero intention of doing it,” Peskov reportedly answered during a press conference.
A Ukrainian intelligence spokesperson said that Putin has now given the head of Russian forces a March deadline to capture the region. Photos by ARIS MESSINIS/AFP/Getty Images
In late December, the British Ministry of Defense said in an intelligence update that Russian forces in Ukraine were seemingly reinforcing parts of its front line in an effort to capture sites in Donbas.
More recently, the ministry wrote in a Monday update that intense fighting was ongoing in both the Kreminna and Bakhmut sectors of the Donbas front. The update reported that there had been attacks and counterattacks in the wooded country areas around Kreminna, but Ukrainian armed forces “continue to gradually advance their front line east on the edge of Kreminna town.”
Gerasimov was promoted to be the new chief of Putin’s military forces in Ukraine earlier this month in what the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) called a “major reshuffle of the Russian command structure for the war in Ukraine.”
The United States-based think tank added that Gerasimov takes over a command structure that is “plagued by endemic, persistent, and self-reinforcing failures that he largely set into motion in his initial role before the invasion of Ukraine.”
Last week, Pentagon press secretary Pat Ryder told reporters that Russia’s recent command restructuring “likely does reflect some of the systemic challenges that the Russian military has faced since the beginning of this invasion.”
