Ukrainian politician: Russian troops will leave Donbas next spring
According to Deputy Minister for Temporarily Occupied Territories and Internally Displaced Persons Yuriy Hrymchak, Russian troops will leave the Donbas in spring of next year, Espresso.TV reports.
"This is information that I personally, I emphasize, received from several sources who are in Moscow and behind the 'curb'. I was even given the exact date when this will happen. The [date range] is March-April 2018," said Hrymchak.
He did not, however, mention the names of the individuals who reported this information.
"You see, the issue is that there are people who are passing along something [information]; they are very much at risk," the politician noted.
In addition, according to the Deputy Minister, this point of view has also been confirmed in open sources, which, he said, report that "financing of the occupied areas is not provided for by Russia for next year."
"It is also known up to what month this financing will continue - at most, until September of the next Year [2018]," the politician stressed. Additionally, Hrymchak drew attention to the fact that recently Russian troops have not been leaving behind any weapons or ammunition for insurgents during their rotations.
"They fired and left," he explained. According to him, the sooner withdrawal of Russian troops from the temporarily occupied areas is also evidenced by the behavior of the armed formations.
"A portion of the leaders have begun to look for housing in Abkhazia, in the suburbs of Moscow," added Hrymchak.
“As for the return of the Crimean peninsula to Ukraine, this will happen when Russia collapses much more heavily: both economically and internally.”