Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with U.S. senators Jack Reed and Angus King in the capital Kyiv Friday.
“Militias from the Luhansk People's Republic (LNR) and Donetsk People's Republic (DNR) were formally integrated into the Russian armed forces on 31 December 2022,” Britain’s Defense Ministry said Friday in its update on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, posted on Twitter.
Luhansk and Donetsk are both internationally recognized as being part of Ukraine.
However, Russia “claims the LNR and DNR as intrinsic parts of the Russian Federation following the fixed accession referendums of September 2022,” the ministry said. In addition, Russia “has discreetly controlled both since 2014, creating DNR's 1st Army Corps and LNR's 2nd Army Corps and supporting them with Russian military officers.”
“The status and identities of the DNR and LNR likely remain divisive within the Russian system. Even before the February 2022 invasion, these territories represented a significant drain on Russian finances,” the British Defense Ministry said. “Now the Kremlin has overtly committed to supporting them, they will likely constitute a large political, diplomatic and financial cost for Russia which will last well beyond the current phase of the conflict.”
Meanwhile, the United States will send 50 Bradley fighting vehicles to Ukraine as part of a new round of military aid to Kyiv, two defense officials tell VOA.
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