NEW YORK, August 6. /TASS/. Russia only want to control those territories that are Russian under its constitution, Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with The New York Times.
"No," he said when asked whether Russia wants to add more Ukrainian territories. "We just want to control all the land we have now written into our Constitution as ours."
Referendums of the accession to Russia were conducted in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), as well as in the Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions from September 23 to 27, 2022. The overwhelming majority of residents supported the move. On September 30, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin and heads of these regions signed treaties on their accession to Russia and on October 4, 2022, Putin signed laws ratifying the treaties.