A “counter-offensive” is underway in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, the Russian defense ministry’s spokesperson said Friday, claiming Ukrainian servicemembers had surrendered to Russian troops and pro-Russian separatists.
CNN could not immediately check the veracity of those claims.
“Groupings of troops of the DPR and LPR [the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics] continue counter-offensive operations against units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine with fire support from the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation,” Igor Konashenkov said. “Troops of the DPR … advanced one more kilometer deep into the defense of the nationalist [Ukrainian] battalions in the Volnovakha direction.”
Konashenkov also claimed advances by Russian and separatist forces in the area of Stepovoye [Stepove] in the Luhansk region, and claimed without further evidence that 150 Ukrainian servicemembers had laid down their arms and surrendered in those operations.
Chernobyl taken: The Russian military also confirmed its airbone troops had taken control of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Ukrainian officials on Thursday confirmed that Russian forces had overtaken and seized control of the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster.
Konashenkov said background radiation in the area of the nuclear power plant was “normal.” He claimed that the Chernobyl operation was organized so that “nationalist formations or other terrorist organizations will not be able to take advantage of the current situation in the country to organize a nuclear provocation.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has made baseless claims about Ukraine’s nuclear ambitions. The White House on Thursday condemned Russia for “holding staff of the Chernobyl facilities hostage.”
Sanctions expected: The Russian government was expecting US and NATO allies to retaliate against the invasion of Ukraine with sanctions and says it will retaliate, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.
“We were expecting it,” Peskov said. “Of course, responses will follow. The law of reciprocity will operate here.”
“But as to how symmetrical or asymmetrical they will be, it will depend on our analysis,” Peskov went on to say. “And our own interests. We will act solely on the basis of our own interests.”
The spokesman for the Kremlin also said he expects diplomatic relations with the global community to be fully restored, once there is widespread understanding of Russia’s motives.
“As soon as there is an understanding that this operation was necessary, an understanding of the inevitability of firm decisive actions on the part of Russia to ensure its security, one way or another, a period of normalization will come,” he said.