According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Russia is no longer “primarily” concentrating its military efforts in Ukraine’s east.
He said that Moscow’s policy had altered in an interview with Russian official media after the West gave Ukraine longer-range weapons.
He explained that in order for Russia to maintain its own security, Ukrainian soldiers would now need to be pushed back from the front line.
The US had previously charged Russia with making plans to annex portions of Ukraine.
In February, Russia invaded Ukraine under the false pretense that the Donbas area in eastern Ukraine’s Russian-speaking population had experienced a massacre and needed to be freed.
Since February, Ukraine has received more potent weapons from the West for use in its defense against Russian forces.
According to Mr. Lavrov, this has compelled Russia to broaden its goals.
In an appearance with Margarita Simonyan, a well-known analyst on Russian TV and editor-in-chief of broadcaster RT, Mr. Lavrov stated, “We cannot allow the part of Ukraine governed by [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky… to acquire weapons that would constitute a direct threat to our territory.”
He declared, quoting Russia’s most recent goals as the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia areas, “The landscape is changed now. Parts of both regions are already controlled by Moscow’s military.
Mr. Lavrov made explicit reference to the longer-range Himars rocket system, which the US has just delivered and with which Ukraine has had some success.
According to reports, Ukrainian soldiers have been using Himars to attack a crucial, critical bridge in the seized Kherson for the past two days. One of the two bridges that Russia uses to supply territory it has annexed on the west side of the Dnipro river, including Kherson city, is the Antonivskyi Bridge.
The West’s decision to arm Ukraine was characterized by the Russian foreign minister as an expression of “impotent fury” and a “will to make things worse.”
Following a hurriedly organized referendum that was deemed illegitimate by the international world and in which voters chose to join Russia, Crimea was seized by Russia in 2014.
The election was boycotted by many Kyiv supporters, and the campaign was neither free nor fair.
Similar ballots would almost definitely result in a similar situation, with any resistance to joining Russia being completely suppressed, in other regions of Ukraine.
Mr. Kirby warned that the US and its partners would act swiftly and said that he was “exposing” the Russian plans “so the world knows that any putative annexation is deliberate, unlawful and unjustified.”
He cited Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk as annexation targets; Mr. Lavrov claims that these same regions are now Russian goals.
