What will happen after when/if Russia takes over Donetsk?

[Woody]

I think Russia is in this for the long run.

[_.]

I think its likely they attempt to push through the Black sea coast, possibly more resources are put into securing Kherson and Mykolaiv.

[CumbrianLefty]

Russia already controls Donetsk (the city) of course.

Its easy to make statements like "in it for the long run" but neither men nor materiel is infinite.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Russian war crimes and Ukrainian resistance will both continue.

[PSOL]

It is practically impossible to spin this venture as a win without Kharkiv.

[Woody]

Lavrov says Russia's aims in Ukraine now go beyond Donbas:

LONDON, July 20 (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday that Moscow's military "tasks" in Ukraine now went beyond the eastern Donbas region, in the clearest acknowledgment yet that its war goals have expanded in the past five months.

"Now the geography is different, it's far from being just the DPR and LPR, it's also Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions and a number of other territories," he said, referring to territories well beyond the Donbas that Russian forces have wholly or partly seized.

"This process is continuing logically and persistently," he said, adding that Russia might need to push even deeper.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/lavrov-says-russias-objectives-ukraine-now-go-beyond-donbas-2022-07-20/

https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1549711941299470336
https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1549710327859892224

[CumbrianLefty]

As ever, talk is cheap.

[Zinneke]

There’ll be a faux plebiscite where half the proUkraine population are deported and the other half assumed as pro Russian voters already (a bit like what happened with the East Cantons after WW1 in Belgium where if you were Francophone you were automatically registered as pro-Belgian)