The Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday that Russia’s military objectives in Ukraine were no longer limited to the east of the country, but also concerned “other territories” which could still expand Russia's invasion objectives to seize more territory.
In an interview, Sergei Lavrov justified this change by a “different geography” compared to the situation that existed on the ground at the end of March, when Moscow had said it wanted to focus on the east, after having notably failed to take Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital.
“It is no longer just the (so-called) People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, it is also the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia and a series of other territories, and this process continues, constantly,” he told the Ria-Novosti news agency and the RT channel.
These statements come as Moscow has made gains in recent weeks in eastern Ukraine, including gaining both Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, which cleared the way for it to try to advance towards the cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk further to the west.
Heavy fighting, however, continues to unfold in this part of Ukraine, Kyiv can count on recent deliveries of more efficient Western artillery pieces. Lavrov also warned that if the West continued to supply Ukraine with weapons capable of striking at long range, such as the American HIMARS multiple rocket launchers, Russia’s geographical objectives would still evolve.
“Because we cannot allow that, in the parts of Ukraine controlled by Zelensky or his successor, there are weapons which can directly threaten our territory, or that of the (separatist) republics” he said.
