Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday that Moscow wants to conquer territory in southern Ukraine beyond the eastern Donbas region, where Ukrainian forces are currently fighting for control.
Russia failed in the early stages of its five-month offensive to overthrow the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky or to capture the capital, Kyiv, in northern Ukraine. But Lavrov said in a new interview with state media that Russia no longer feels compelled to fight in the Donbas, where Russian separatists have been fighting Kiev’s forces since 2014 when Russia seized Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula.
Latest developments in Ukraine: 20 July
Russia recently took control of Luhansk province in Donbas and is fighting to take over neighboring Donetsk province.
But Lavrov told state news agency RT television and RIA Novosti news agency, ‘Now the geography has changed. It’s not just Donetsk and Luhansk, it’s Kherson, Zaporizhia and several other territories. This process continues, consistently and persistently. “
Lavrov, Russia’s top diplomat, said Moscow’s territorial goals would expand further if Western countries supply more long-range missiles to Kyiv.
When it first invaded Ukraine on February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin said his goal was to demilitarize and “denazify” the country, even though Zelenskyy is Jewish. The West and Kyiv said the Russian attack was simply an imperialist-style war of expansion.
A month later, when it failed to take Kyiv, Russia claimed that its main goal was the “liberation of Donbas”. Even as fighting continues daily in Donetsk, Russia has fired dozens of missiles at other Ukrainian cities, killing hundreds of civilians despite claiming they were not targeting non-military sites.
Ukraine has attacked a strategically important bridge over the Dnieper River in the Kherson region, using US-supplied HIMARS rocket launchers. Russian officials said the bridge had been damaged but was still open to some traffic. The Russian military would be under heavy pressure to continue supplying its forces in the region if the bridge was destroyed.
White House National Security spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Tuesday that the US intelligence service indicated that Russia “lays the groundwork for annexing Ukrainian territory which it controls in direct violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty”.
Kirby said the areas involved in plans Russia is reviewing include Kherson, Zaporizhia and all of Donetsk and Luhansk provinces.
He also called on the US Congress to ratify Finland’s and Sweden’s accession to NATO, saying the Biden administration wants to see the two countries “brought into the alliance as soon as possible.”
Both Sweden and Finland broke with long-standing non-alliance positions to seek NATO membership as a direct result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee gave its approval on Tuesday, which set the stage for a vote in the entire Senate.
All 30 NATO members must approve the accession of Finland and Sweden to the military alliance.
Cereal shipments
On the diplomatic front, Putin said on Tuesday that Russia is ready to facilitate Ukrainian grain shipments from ports along the Black Sea, but that he wants Western countries to lift their sanctions against Russian grain exports.
Putin spoke in Iran after meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on a proposed plan to resume Ukrainian exports.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has disrupted Ukrainian trade, and with pressure on global food supplies, the UN has been involved in talks to unblock the shipments.
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Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, told reporters on Tuesday that Guterres remained optimistic that a deal can be reached. He added that Guterres had discussed the ongoing negotiations in a phone call on Monday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
On Tuesday, Putin also met with Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran, signaling closer ties between the two countries.
“Contact with Khamenei is very important,” Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy adviser, told reporters in Moscow. “A trusting dialogue has developed between them on the key issues on the bilateral and international agenda.”
“On most issues, our positions are close or identical,” Ushakov said.
As Moscow faces ongoing Western economic sanctions for its invasion of Ukraine, Russia is seeking to strengthen strategic ties with Iran, China and India.
Iran, which also faces Western economic sanctions and ongoing disputes with the United States over Tehran’s nuclear program, expressed hope for closer ties with Russia.
“Both our countries have good experience in fighting terrorism, and this has provided a lot of security to our region,” Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said after the meeting with Putin. “I hope that your visit to Iran will increase cooperation between our two independent countries.”
White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Tuesday that intelligence indicated that Russia is “laying the groundwork to annex Ukrainian territory that it controls in direct violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty.”
Kirby said the areas involved in plans Russia is reviewing include Kherson, Zaporizhia and all of Donetsk and Luhansk provinces.
He also called on the US Congress to ratify Finland and Sweden’s accession to NATO, saying the Biden administration wants to see the two countries “brought into the alliance as soon as possible.”
Both Sweden and Finland broke with long-standing non-alliance positions to seek NATO membership as a direct result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The US Senate’s foreign relations gave its approval on Tuesday, which paved the way for a vote in the entire Senate.
All NATO’s 30 member states must approve Finland and Sweden joining the military alliance.
Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Source: sn.dk