Pummeling Russian-speaking cities in Ukraine Kremlin’s main mistake - defense minister

That’s according to Minister of Defense of Ukraine Oleksiy Reznikov, who announced this on the air of the national telethon, Ukrinform reports.

"The Kremlin’s main mistake is that they began to destroy mostly Russian-speaking cities in Ukraine. The ones on the border with Russia – Volnovakha, Kharkiv, Mariupol, and others. In fact, they took revenge and continue to take revenge on Russian-speaking Ukrainians who didn’t meet them with flowers, as they dreamed – that they would be out there on the streets, in the squares, as was in some cases in 2014… Relatively speaking, Crimea surrendered without a fight,” the defense chief said.

He added that Ukraine is putting up a fight and not surrendering. And hence their revenge. That is why there are so many bomb and artillery strikes on peaceful cities, where the Russian-speaking population predominates. I am convinced that today, if we run some sociological research, the map of some electoral sympathies for something pro-Kremlin has changed significantly," Reznikov said.

According to the Minister of Defense, after Ukraine gains victory, it will extremely important to hold re-elections of local councils and parliament in order to finally get rid of pro-Russian political forces in Ukraine.