Putin, 'Donbass is Russian after difficult and tragic journey' - Breaking news. President Vladimir Putin said this while speaking in Red Square at a concert on the tenth anniversary of the annexation of Crimea.
Russia will move forward "together with the new regions, hand in hand", he said. Putin then sang the national anthem with the whole square and with the three candidates defeated in the presidential elections, who went up on stage with him. The journey of the Donbass Ukrainian people "to their homeland" turned out to be "more difficult" than that of Crimea, Putin said.