NATO says they expect Russia to plan a ‘concentrated attack’ to take over the entire Donbas region

• Russia is expected to follow through with its previously announced plan to “liberate” the Donbas region. 
• On Tuesday, NATO said Russia will likely launch that “concentrated effort” in the next few weeks. 
• NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said it’s important for allies to provide support to Ukraine. 

Russia will likely launch a new “concentrated” offensive in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region in the next few weeks, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said during a press conference on Tuesday. 

“We now see a significant movement of (Russian) troops away from Kyiv to regroup, re-arm and re-supply and shift their focus to the east,” Stoltenberg said. 

He added: “In the coming weeks we expect a further Russian push in the east and southern Ukraine, to try to take the entire Donbas and to create a land bridge to the occupied Crimea.”

—Jens Stoltenberg (@jensstoltenberg) April 5, 2022

Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 with the help of Moscow-backed separatists. Days before his invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin also recognized the two separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has previously said that the world’s reaction to Putin in 2014, led to the current invasion. 

“It is often said that unpunished evil returns,” Zelenskyy said in a virtual address to Australia’s parliament. “I would add — unpunished evil returns winged, with a sense of omnipotence.”

Russia faced condemnation and sanctions following the 2014 invasion of Crimea and was kicked out of the  G8 group of world leaders. 

“If the world had punished Russia for what it did in 2014, there would be none of the horrors of this invasion of Ukraine in 2022,” Zelenskyy said. “We need to fix these terrible mistakes now.”

In late March Sergei Rudskoi, a senior Russian military leader said the first part of the war in Ukraine was over and troops would now focus on “the liberation of Donbas,” which he said was the “main goal.” 

Stoltenberg said that repositioning Russian troops could take weeks, and in the meantime, it’s important for NATO allies to “provide support” for Ukraine.