One of Putin's justifications for his invasion of Ukraine is to protect the Russian-speaking population in the east of the country, which the Kremlin and its propaganda outlets have long claimed are being oppressed by Kyiv and wish to join Russia.Pushilin told Putin that recent artillery strikes had killed 21 civilians and injured 94 more between December 2 and 18, in the cities of Donetsk, Makeyevka and Gorlovka.Pushilin—who became acting head of the separatist authority after the assassination of his predecessor Alexander Zakharchenko in 2018—claimed that Moscow, the DNR and the Kremlin-aligned Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) had tried "to resolve the conflict peacefully" since 2014, adding: "Europe and the West cannot be trusted."Putin awarded medals to both Pushilin and Pasechnik, as well as top Kremlin allies including propagandist Margarita Simonyan, the head of the puppet authority in occupied Zaporizhzhia, Yevgeny Balitsky and the head of the puppet authority in occupied Kherson, Vladimir Saldo.Zelensky, meanwhile, visited the front line city of Bakhmut; the hottest part of the front in recent weeks, which Russian forces—led by Wagner Group mercenaries—are trying to capture."