Russia will stop the war when NATO stops ‘capturing’ Ukraine

A senior Moscow diplomat has said the war in Ukraine, which Russia calls a special military operation, will end when NATO countries stop threatening Russia by using Ukraine for their own purposes.

“The special military operation will end when its tasks are completed. These include the protection of the civilian population of Donbas, the demilitarisation and denazification of Ukraine, as well as the elimination of threats to Russia emanating from Ukrainian territory due to its being captured by NATO countries,” Alexey Polishchuk, director of the Second Department for CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States] Affairs of the Russian Foreign Ministry, told state news agency TASS.