Russia expands goals in Ukraine as war enters fifth month
- Moscow signalled it was aiming to seize more Ukrainian territory beyond the eastern industrial region of Donbas
- US says any annexations would not go unchallenged, as it promises more precision rocket systems for Ukraine
Moscow said it was expanding its plans to take over Ukrainian territory beyond the eastern Donbas in response to Kyiv’s growing supplies of Western weapons, as Russia’s invasion of its neighbour neared the five-month mark.
Russia plans to capture more Ukrainian territory because the delivery of long-range Western weapons to Kyiv has changed “the geography” of the battle, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
“The process will continue. It will be towards a goal and with pressure,” he told Russian broadcaster RT on Wednesday. He said since Ukraine now has weapons from the West that let it strike at distances of up to 300km, it was necessary to push them even further back to minimise the dangers to Russian forces.
“The geography is different now,” he said, adding that Russia was no longer just focused on the Donbas region or the southern Ukrainian regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhya, but on “a series of other territories”.
One of the original goals of the Russian invasion was to demilitarise Ukraine.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba quickly fired back that Russia is more interested in bloodshed than finding a way to end the fighting.