Russian President Vladimir Putin says Russia’s “main” goal in the current war with Ukraine is to capture the Donbas region, almost 30 months after Moscow launched its military operation in the ex-Soviet republic.

The Russian president, who was speaking during the annual Eastern Economic Forum in the Russian city of Vladivostok on Thursday, stressed that Kiev’s military incursion in Russia’s Kursk region had made capturing Donbas easier.

“The aim of the enemy (in Kursk) was to force us to worry, hustle, divert troops and to stop our offensive in key areas, especially in the Donbas, the liberation of which is our main primary objective,” Putin said.

He said that sending “quite well-prepared units” into Kursk, Ukraine had made Moscow’s advance in Donbas quicker. “The enemy weakened itself in key areas, our army has accelerated its offensive operations.”

Putin’s comments came just a day after Russian troops attacked Ukraine’s western Lviv region with deadly strikes, and after recent westwards advances by Moscow in the Donbas, in Ukraine’s east.

The Russian president also said that he was ready to hold peace talks with Ukraine, on the basis of an aborted deal between representatives of both countries reached in Istanbul in 2022.

“Are we ready to negotiate with them? We have never refused to do so, but not on the basis of some ephemeral demands, but on the basis of those documents that were agreed and actually initialed in Istanbul,” Putin noted.

Moscow’s forces have made significant progress and are now approximately twelve kilometers from Pokrovsk, a crucial logistics center in eastern Ukraine from which thousands have recently evacuated.

“Our armed forces have stabilized the situation and started gradually squeezing (the enemy) out from our territory,” Putin said, referring to the Kursk region.

“It is the holy duty of the Russian army to do everything to throw out the enemy from this territory and to protect our citizens,” he further said.

Back in September 2022, Moscow added four Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk – collectively known as Donbas – as well Kherson and Zaporizhia to the Russian Federation after holding referendums. However, Russia has not yet fully wrested control over these regions.

Moscow launched its special military operation on February 24, 2022.

Since the war started, Western countries have delivered hundreds of shipments of military equipment to the former Soviet republic.

The Western countries even supplied long-range missiles, tanks and warplanes to Ukraine despite initial reservations, turning the conflict into a full-fledged war.