On March 25, the deputy chief of the Russian military declared that the main emphasis of Russia’s brutal one-month-old Ukraine invasion would now be in the east, where it would seek “the liberation” of the Donbas. To many Western observers, the aim of the statement was clear: with the Russian offensives around Kyiv, Kharkiv, and other major Ukrainian cities virtually stalled and Russian forces absorbing heavy losses, Moscow needed a way to reclaim the mission. Focusing on the Donbas—where it has long been commanding, arming, and reinforcing separatists in Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk provinces—was a convenient way to do so.
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