Medvedev believes he knows why Kiev wants Donbass

Ukraine is fighting for Donbass because of the region’s vast natural resources, which Kiev and its foreign backers want to exploit, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said on Friday.

The Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, which officially joined Russia together with Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions in the fall of 2022, are “completely alien” to Ukraine in terms of culture, Medvedev wrote on Telegram. The reason why the Kiev authorities are trying to get them back so desperately, he explained, “is trivial: money is needed.”

“The criminal clique” of Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, which “has stolen so heavily,”has led the country’s economy to “disaster,” while Kiev’s backers in the US and the EU have also “spent a lot” on aiding Ukraine during conflict, which “irritates” their populations, Medvedev, who serves as deputy chair of the Russian Security Council, also pointed out.

The West needs a “payback” from Ukraine, he said, adding that it has nothing to do with Zelensky personally. “This kid will be gone soon, but the debt will remain. And it must be paid off, with interest,” the former president noted.

Medevdev reminded readers that, according to open-source data, the natural resources located in Donbass are estimated to be worth $7.3 trillion. The area is rich in coal, metals, rare-earth elements and other valuable materials, including lithium, he added.

“To get access to the coveted minerals, the Western parasites shamelessly demand that their wards [in Kiev] wage war to the last Ukrainian,” he wrote.

Western politicians are “directly voicing” their plans, the official said, referring to a statement made by South Carolina’s Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. In June, the Republican lawmaker called Ukraine a “gold mine” due to its vast reserve of “critical minerals.” Graham argued that Washington should keep helping Kiev in the conflict with Moscow to make sure those “assets could be used by Ukraine and the West, not given to Putin and China.”

With the Russian military making steady gains in Donbass since the start of the year and now approaching the strategic town of Pokrovsk, “the fact remains that the economic basis of Ukrainian statehood has been undermined,” Medvedev wrote. The resource base that had been “illegally obtained” by Kiev after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 “has returned to its native country,” which is Russia, he said.

As for Ukraine, the Western aid it gets “will soon dry up” and all that awaits the country is “rapid decomposition and imminent disintegration,” the former president concluded.