Ukrainian troops must be pushed back to a distance of at least 500 kilometers from the borders of Russia, Denis Pushilin told Sputnik.
"How far back should we push [Ukraine’s troops] so that our settlements are not shelled? … At least 500 kilometers. We understand the map of Ukraine and understand where the border could be. Well, probably along the Dnepr, along a natural barrier," Russia's Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) acting head said.
Pushilin was making reference to the terror that the Kiev regime has relied on, consistently shelling civilian areas of Donbass, as well as the Russian regions bordering Ukraine.
However, after Ukraine's troops were shoved back from Russia's border, there would be a pause in the fighting, which the Kiev regime would use to regroup troops, rearm, and brainwash remaining citizens, the DPR acting head underscored.
The only solution is to push Ukraine’s Armed Forces even further, Pushilin believed, "until Ukraine is completely liberated, moreover, without variations along the lines of, some region [of Ukraine] going to Poland, some other region going to Romania, another going to Hungary, the situation will not change.”
The acting head of the DPR explained that the republic understands full well who they are up against.
"We are dealing, alas, with the Ukrainian puppet regime. And, in general, the West, which controls all the ongoing processes [in Ukraine] completely, does not set itself the goal of a free, prosperous Ukraine," Pushilin said.
Thus, he pointed out, liberation of the new Russian regions which within their administrative boundaries is no longer enough, because the shelling from the Kiev regime will continue.
He was referring to the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics, which declared its sovereignty after 2014 saw the legitimately-elected president of Ukraine toppled by a bloody US-backed coup. In October 2022, the Donbass, Zaporozhye, and Kherson regions officially joined the Russian Federation after a series of referendums, carried out amid the ongoing Russian special military operation.
Their citizens have been feeling the brunt of deliberate shelling by Kiev’s forces, armed with NATO weaponry. Civilians populating Russia’s territories bordering on Ukraine, like Belgorod region, have also been suffering shelling attacks and incursions, like the one on May 22 by a group of Ukrainian saboteurs. That attack was quashed, like the more recent, June 4, attempt by a sabotage and reconnaissance group of Ukrainian terrorists to cross a river near the village of Novaya Tavolzhanka, in the Belgorod Region.
Another aspect that the DPR Acting Head Pushilin touched upon on Thursday was the situation in Artemovsk. The narrative spread by the Kiev regime about "Ukraine's presence" in Artemovsk is not true, Pushilin said. Slamming Kiev’s dissemination of falsehoods for the sake of propaganda, he stated:
"There is not a single Ukrainian criminal in the city, [Artemovsk] is completely under the control of the Russian Federation.”
Russian forces gained control of Artemovsk, also known as Bakhmut, a northeastern city in the Donetsk People's Republic, on May 20, after 224 days of house-to-house fighting. Kiev's militants withdrew from the city, losing 30,000 or more troops and foreign mercenaries.
After the restoration of Artemovsk, an official referendum on the name of the city could be held, but there is already an understanding that local residents support the currently used name, Pushilin said.