Moscow may annex more Ukrainian regions: Medvedev

Moscow does does not fully control any iy already hols and is battling a Kyiv counteroffensive to take them back.

Dmitry Medvedev, left, visits a military training field in Siberia. Picture: AFP

Former Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev suggested overnight on Saturday that Moscow may annex more regions of Ukraine, as he marked a year since the Kremlin claimed four Ukrainian territories as its own.

Moscow held elections in the four regions in September, but does not fully control any of them and is battling a Ukrainian counteroffensive to take them back.

“The special military operation will continue until the complete destruction of the Nazi regime in Kyiv,” said Mr Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council.

“Victory will be ours. And there will be more new regions within Russia.”

Russia uses the term “new regions” to refer to the Ukrainian territories of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson that Moscow claimed to annex last September.

President Vladimir Putin addressed the nation earlier to mark the anniversary of the annexations, calling them a historic choice by the people living there to reunite with the “Fatherland”.

Mr Medvedev, once considered a liberal reformer, has since become one of Moscow’s most hawkish voices in support of the Ukraine offensive and often denounces the West in inflammatory posts on social media.

AFP