He says that negotiations to achieve peace are “meaningless” in the current situation
Despite the slow pace with which Russian troops are advancing in Donbas, the objective declared by Moscow as the main objective in its current military intervention on Ukrainian soil, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced this Wednesday in an interview with several Russian media that, due to the long-range weapons aid that Ukraine is receiving from the West, “the geography of the special operation has changed. It is far from being only the people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk».
According to his statements, Russia now contemplates also keeping “the regions of Kherson, Zaporizhia and a whole series of other territories. This process continues and will continue steadily and persistently.” In his interview with the official RT television, the RIA-Novosti agency and other Russian media, Lavrov said that, according to the result of the peace negotiations between Moscow and kyiv, in March «there was a geography and now it is different”. Talks for a settlement of the conflict broke down at the end of March and have not yet been resumed. The last contact was in Istanbul.
So, Russia demanded that Ukraine accept the definitive loss of Crimea and the two regions of Donbas, Donetsk and Luhansk, in order to stop the war. Now, judging by the words of the head of Russian diplomacy, if kyiv wants to end the conflict, it will also have to forget about Kherson and most of Zaporizhia, regions that the Russian Army quickly took in the first days of the war advancing from Crimea.
Lavrov explained that such a paradigm shift, which, according to him, could mean for kyiv the loss of other areas of the country, is due to “the military threats to Russia emanating from the territory of Ukraine.” He added that “geographical targets will be further expanded if kyiv receives weapons of ever-increasing range.” The Russian minister warned that “we cannot allow that in the part of Ukraine controlled by Zelensky or the person who succeeds him there are weapons that represent a direct threat to our territory or to the territory of those republics that have declared their independence and want self-determination. ». In his opinion, organizing a new round of negotiations right now would serve no purpose. “It doesn’t make sense in the current situation,” he said.
After the unsuccessful attempts to take kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, on March 25, the Russian Defense Ministry announced the withdrawal of its troops from the area around kyiv to concentrate them in Donbas with the aim of completely taking over the provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk and putting them under the control of pro-Russian separatists. It was stated then that thus began “the second stage of the operation.”
“We haven’t really started”
With the taking of Lisichansk, on July 3, the occupation of Lugansk was practically completed and now the Russian Army is preparing to undertake the conquest of important cities in the Donetsk region such as Sloviansk, Kramatorsk and Bakhmut. But in June, the United States began supplying Ukraine with HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems, with a range of 60 kilometers, which allowed the Ukrainian army to destroy Russian command posts and numerous ammunition and equipment depots.
Ukraine, according to the secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council SNBO, Oleksiy Danilov, now awaits the arrival of HIMARS launchers with a longer range, up to 300 kilometers, which would allow attacking Crimea, the base of the Black Sea Fleet. and even the bridge that President Vladimir Putin ordered to be built to link the peninsula with the Russian region of Krasnodar.
On July 7, the Russian leader assured that “we have not refused to hold peace talks, but those who refuse to do so should know that the longer it takes to undertake them, the more difficult it will be for them to negotiate with us.” Referring to arms shipments to Ukraine from the United States and other NATO countries, the Kremlin chief warned that “they want to defeat us on the battlefield, what can I say? Well, let them try” and threatened in relation to the campaign in progress that “everyone should know that, in general, we have not yet started anything in earnest”.
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