Russia’s foreign minister said Moscow had expanded its war aims for its invasion of Ukraine, the strongest sign yet that it aims to annex parts of the country currently under its control.
Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday Russia’s goals were more ambitious than Moscow had declared at the start of the war in February, when it claimed its goal was to “liberate” the eastern Donbas border region.
Moscow’s war aims now extend to the provinces of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in southern Ukraine, which are mostly occupied by Russian forces, Lavrov said. The Donbas region is now largely under the control of two Moscow-backed separatist groups in the provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk.