During an interview with the daily outlet Argumenty i Fakty on Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov acknowledged that Russia is in a “state of war” with Ukraine.
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"We are in a state of war. Yes, it started as a Special Military Operation, but as soon as this group was formed there, when the collective West became a participant in this on the Ukrainian side, for us it already became a war," he said.
In this new stage, Russia's main objective now is to expel the Ukrainian occupation forces and ensure security in the Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions.
"We have four new federal entities. The main thing for us is to guarantee the security of the people in these federal entities and liberate the territory of these regions, which is currently occupied 'de facto' by the Kiev regime," Peskov stated.
The Kremlin spokesman reiterated that Russia will do everything possible to ensure that the Ukrainian war potential does not represent a threat to its citizens and territories in the future.
"The Russian Federation cannot allow the existence of a state on its borders, which has a documented intention to use any methods to take Crimea, and I'm not even talking about the territory of the new regions," Peskov said.
On Friday, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that its forces carried out 49 retaliatory strikes with high-precision weapons from March 16-22 in response to Ukrainian attacks.
These military actions were in response to the Ukraine shelling of Russian territory and attempts to break through and capture Russian border settlements.
As a result of the strikes, decision-making centers of the Ukrainian armed forces, airfield infrastructure facilities, workshops for the repair of weapons and military equipment, storage warehouses for UAVs and unmanned boats, logistics bases, as well as temporary deployment points for special operations forces and foreign mercenaries were hit.