Russia’s objectives in Ukraine now extend beyond Donbas: Lavrov
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said Moscow's military "tasks" in Ukraine have now gone beyond the eastern region of Donbas due to constant supplies of Western equipment, weapons, and ammunition to Kiev.
In an interview with state news agency RIA Novosti, Lavrov said on Wednesday that supplies of Western weapons had changed the Kremlin's calculus.
If the West, out of "impotent rage" or desire to aggravate the situation further, kept pumping Ukraine with long-range weapons such as the US-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), "that means the geographical tasks will extend still further from the current line", the foreign minister added
The top Russian diplomat further said geographical realities had changed since Russian and Ukrainian negotiators held peace talks in late March.
Lavrov said the first rounds of talks with Ukraine proved that Kyiv had no "desire to discuss anything in earnest." Talks between Russia and Ukraine largely ground to a halt in mid-April, Lavrov said. At that time, he said, the focus was on the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR), breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine.
"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.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Lavrov stressed that Russia could not allow Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky "or whoever replaces him" to threaten its territory or that of the DPR and LPR with the longer-range systems.
Ukraine has been the subject of the Russian military operation since February 24, with Moscow saying that the operation is aimed at “demilitarizing” the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas.
Since the start of the offensive, Russian forces have taken over large swathes of Ukraine, including the complete seizure of the eastern region of Luhansk. Russian troops are now pushing ahead to complete their takeover of the entire Donbas, made up of the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces.
The military operation has led to a deeper feud between Russia and the West, with the United States and its allies slapping unprecedented sanctions on Moscow and flooding Ukraine with advanced weapons.
Russia has said the Western flood of weapons into Ukraine and the sanctions would prolong the ongoing war.
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