Russia Enters 'Second Phase' of War, Wants To Take Over Donbas, Southern Ukraine

Russia has stated that its invasion of Ukraine is aimed at gaining "complete control" of southern Ukraine and the eastern Donbas area.

The declaration by a senior military officer is the first time Russia has acknowledged that it is working to construct a land corridor connecting Russia to Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.

Russia Aims For Eastern Donbas

The aim is to build a land corridor between Ukraine's eastern Donbas area and Crimea, according to acting Russian Central Military District commander Maj. Gen. Rustam Minnekaev. He went on to say that gaining control of Ukraine's south would enable Russian soldiers access to Transnistria, a separatist statelet in Moldova where Russian military have been stationed since the early 1990s.

According to CNN, the Ukrainian government still controls the strategic cities of Mykolaiv and Odesa, and some Ukrainian soldiers are holding out in a steel mill in the surrounded port of Mariupol.

After failing to conquer Kyiv, Russia withdrew its soldiers from northern Ukraine in recent weeks, with Russian military authorities declaring that their strategic aims had moved to capturing the whole eastern Donbas area.

Kyiv claimed earlier this month that a regional airfield was being readied to host planes and be used by Moscow to fly in Ukraine-bound soldiers, claims refuted by Moldova's defense ministry and Transnistria's leadership.

Minnekayev was not mentioned as having provided any proof or specifics about the alleged oppression. On February 24, Russia dispatched tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine in what it described as a "special operation" aimed at degrading its southern neighbor's military capabilities and rooting out "dangerous nationalists." Ukraine's soldiers have resisted, and the West has slapped Russia with sweeping sanctions in an attempt to force it to remove its troops, as per Reuters via MSN.

Russia Seizes 42 Towns in Eastern Ukraine

Russian military seized more than three dozen tiny towns in eastern Ukraine this week, according to Ukrainian officials, providing the first look of what likely to be a grueling struggle by the Kremlin to make greater territory gains in a new phase of the two-month-old war.

Fighting in the east erupted as a Russian general revealed even greater ambitions, saying that the Kremlin's forces planned to take "complete control" of southern Ukraine all the way to Moldova, Ukraine's southwest border.

Although it appeared improbable that the commander Gen. Rustam Minnekayev misspoke, his warning was met with suspicion, owing to Russia's potential difficulty in launching another large attack and the general's relatively minor status in the hierarchy. His threat, though, could not be ruled out.

The larger military goals he detailed at a defense industry convention in a Russian city more than 1,000 miles distant from the conflict would be significantly more ambitious than President Vladimir V. Putin's previous downscaled ambitions, which have concentrated on seizing control of eastern Ukraine's Donbas area.

The general's comments might have been part of Russia's ongoing efforts to divert or mislead Ukraine and its supporters, according to some political and military experts. The formal role of General Minnekayev entails political propaganda work and does not often include military strategy, The New York Times reported.