Ukraine: we now want a bigger slice, says Lavrov

Russia’s military ambitions have expanded beyond the eastern Donbas region, foreign minister Sergey Lavrov says.

Ukrainian servicemen stand on their tank in Eastern Ukraine last week. Picture: AFP

Russia’s military ambitions in Ukraine have expanded beyond the eastern Donbas region and it is seeking to seize additional territory, the country’s foreign minister said.

Sergey Lavrov said that realities on the ground had changed since Russian and Ukrainian negotiators failed to achieve a breakthrough at peace talks in Turkey in March.

At the time, Moscow would have accepted Ukrainian recognition of Russian rule in the Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic (DPR and LPR) as grounds to halt its invasion, Lavrov said yesterday.

“Now the geography is different, it’s far from being just the DPR and LPR, it’s also Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions and a number of other territories,” he told Russian state media. Moscow could widen further its aims to take in additional towns and cities.

“This process is continuing, persistently and insistently,” he said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Picture: AFP

Kremlin-installed officials in Ukraine have said they are preparing the ground for “referendums” on incorporating Kherson and Zaporizhzhya into Russia. Any votes carried out under Russian occupation would be illegal under international law.

Kherson has been under Russian control since early in the war, although Ukraine has said it is planning a counter-offensive to retake the region. Zaporizhzhya’s main city is under Ukrainian government control, however much of the region is in Russian hands.

The White House accused the Kremlin this week of preparing to carry out “an annexation by force.”

Moscow used similar tactics when it seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

President Putin has said that Russia wants to “denazify and demilitarise” Ukraine, though officials in Moscow have insisted they are not seeking to topple President Zelensky. However, Russian forces attempted to seize Kyiv in the early weeks of the war before being forced to retreat.

Lavrov’s comments came as separatist forces in the Donbas were said to have stepped up their efforts to force local men into fighting at the front. In a video circulated on social media, an unknown woman argues furiously with separatists who were trying to conscript her husband into the army.

“You’ve already pissed us off with your war.! You’ve taken all the men, all the guys. We’ve already buried half of them! [My] brother-in-law. [My] brother. All of them!” shouts the woman in the video, which was filmed in Makiivka, a city in the Donetsk region. It was unclear what happened to the woman and her husband.

Conscripts in separatist-held regions of eastern Ukraine have complained that they have been sent to the front without proper equipment, food or medicine. “What is there to be gained from sending your soldiers to die?” their commander asked in a video.

The Times