Russia forces everyone in occupied eastern Ukraine to pay £200 each to fund war – World News

Vitaly Khotsenko, the prime minister of the self-proclaimed republic, stated that 14,000 rubles (£200) will be taken from everyone, including infants and the elderly

Russia is forcing everyone in the occupied territories of eastern Ukraine to pay 14,000 rubles (£200) for the war, it has been reported.

Kira Yarmysh, the spokeswoman for Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, tweeted that Vitaly Khotsenko, the prime minister of the self-proclaimed republic, said 14,000 rubles (around £200) would be taken from everyone, including babies and the elderly.

The Kremlin has announced that it will invest more than two trillion rubles in the economy of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) within two years, but it is not known how the money will actually be spent.

Ukrainians living in the southeastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, known as Donbass, have been controlled by Moscow-backed separatists for nearly eight years.

But Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized Donetsk and Luhansk as official republics only three days before invading Ukraine on February 21.

This was seen as an excuse for the warmonger to invade Ukraine.

All UN member states, except Russia, still legally consider the DPR to be part of Ukraine and not an independent state.

Earlier this week, however, Syria became the first country to officially recognize the two parts of Ukraine as independent republics.

Russia is Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s key ally, and both countries have jointly committed a long list of war crimes and sustained each other through years of wars.

Now, for the first time, senior Russian government officials have been appointed members of the DPR’s separatist administration, confirming growing concerns that Russia could permanently occupy captured territories during the invasion.

Russia’s original war aim of capturing major Ukrainian cities such as the capital Kyiv failed, and so fighting has now refocused and is fiercest in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Ukraine is suffering about 1,000 military deaths and wounded daily in the Donbass region, a Ukrainian official said on Wednesday.

According to public polls, more than a third of Russians consider themselves poor, which has been exacerbated by the war.

There is now a huge economic bottleneck and a large number of job losses in Russia, which have increased as a result of the sanctions imposed since the invasion of Ukraine.

According to experts from the International Organization for Migration, remittance-dependent communities in Central Asia are particularly feeling the effects.

A Twitter user responded to the news, saying: “Russia itself does not need this money at all.”

Another said: “If they support the occupied territories, it will do little to improve the situation of the disadvantaged.”