Servicemen of the LPR People's Militia. Archival photoLUGANSK, April 24 The people's militia of the Luhansk People's Republic liberated the settlement of Novotoshkivske in the Donbass, said the official representative of the republic's defense department Ivan Filiponenko. point Novotoshkovskoye,» an official representative of the People's Militia of the LPR said. He specified that the settlement is under the control of the republic. Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine on February 24. President Vladimir Putin called its goal «the protection of people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kyiv regime for eight years.» For this, according to him, it is planned to carry out «demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine», to bring to justice all war criminals responsible for «bloody crimes against civilians» in Donbass. According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, the Armed Forces strike only at the military infrastructure and Ukrainian troops, and on March 25 they completed the main tasks of the first stage — they significantly reduced the combat potential of Ukraine. The main goal in the Russian military department was called the liberation of Donbass.
