Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Wednesday that Russia’s goals in Ukraine are now expanded beyond the Donbas region, citing the failed peace talks and Western military aid to Ukraine.
When Russia pulled its forces out of areas in northern Ukraine, Moscow said it would focus on the “liberation” of the breakaway Donbas republics, known as the Donestk People’s Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR). Lavrov’s comments are the first time a high-level Russian official acknowledged Moscow’s war aims extend beyond that region.
Lavrov said that geographical realities changed after Russian and Ukrainian negotiators failed to reach a breakthrough at talks that were held in Istanbul back in March. “Now the geography is different, it’s far from being just the DPR and LPR, it’s also Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions and a number of other territories,” the Russian foreign minister said.
During the peace talks in March, Russia demanded that Ukraine recognize the DPR and LPR as independent and drop its claim to Crimea, which Russia has controlled since 2014. Before Russia invaded on February 24, Moscow wanted Kyiv to fulfill the Minsk accords to end the war in the Donbas, which would have granted the DPR and LPR autonomy, but they would have remained part of Ukraine.
As the war drags on and Russia continues to make more gains, Ukraine stands to lose more territory. Russia already controls most of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts, and Russian-installed leaders in those regions have said they’re planning to hold a referendum on joining the Russian Federation. Lavrov said that Russia could push even further into Ukraine if the US and its allies keep pumping longer-range weapons into the country.
“That means the geographical tasks will extend still further from the current line,” Lavrov said. “We cannot allow the part of Ukraine that Zelensky will control or whoever replaces him to have weapons that will pose a direct threat to our territory and the territory of those republics that have declared their independence.”
The US shows no sign of slowing military aid to Ukraine. The Pentagon pledged on Wednesday that Ukraine will receive four more High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) as part of the next weapons package that will be announced this week. The HIMARS are a mobile multiple rocket launch system that have a range of 50 miles.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba responded to Lavrov’s comments and said it shows Russia isn’t interested in negotiations. “By confessing dreams to grab more Ukrainian land, (the) Russian foreign minister proves that Russia rejects diplomacy and focuses on war and terror. Russians want blood, not talks,” he said.
Lavrov said that peace talks don’t make sense at the moment because Western governments are leaning on Ukraine to keep fighting and not negotiate. Ukraine has maintained that its goals in the war are to push Russia out of all Ukrainian territory, including Crimea. President Biden has said the US is prepared to support Ukraine for “as long as it takes” for Kyiv to win the war, and his administration has abandoned diplomacy with Moscow.
President Biden has said… his administration has abandoned diplomacy with Moscow. Truth is US never has tried diplomacy with Russia. Saying “abandoned” is a red herring. Or maybe a red, white and blue herring.
…beat me to it…
To anyone who understands the history of Russian imperialism and Ukrainian nationalism it is obvious that this is a war of assimilation. Russian chauvinists believe that Ukraine is part of Russia. The war will ultimately end when the Ukrainian resistance wears down the Russian occupation. But that day may be far off.
ok so when russia assimilates ukrainian territories, will that include the bio weapons labs that uncle sam had been operating in the ukraine territories? or should the rest of the world just pretend that wasn’t happening.
Thank you, we have to keep this expose’ alive, especially in view and context of its work at the Wuhan Institute. Clearly they’re heavily invested in bio-weapons development.
It wasn’t happening. File that one next to Iraqi WMD the Russians are so lazy they barely changed the script.
Nuland spilled the beans on that one, not the Russians.
Oh man, get ready for attacks from the majority in this blog. They don’t like to read anything negative about Russia, even when it’s true.
Before we talk about Russian, German, French, Roman, Greek, Sumerian, etc., imperialism, we have to talk about US American imperialism because that is the only imperialism that matters today.
Russians know full well that they don’t have the means to resurrect Tsarist or Soviet imperialism. Putin even said that anybody who wants the Soviet Union back “has no brains.”
Thus, the problem, the only problem, is US American imperialism. It was US imperialists that staged the fascist Kyiv coup in 2014 as first step towards destroying the Russian Federation.
In the real world, Putin has already reduced Ukraine to a food-only exporter which is a financial trade-disaster for reduced-Ukraine which will need support from our taxpayers for a long time to come. Or from the Russian taxpayers. That is the real wold.
Ukraine’s food exports have not re-started, it is only under discussion.
It will never happen if Russia takes the rest of the coastline as it now says it will. Blaming the HIMARS escalation for their own.
Blaming Russia for NATO’s escalation by expanding the Alliance to Russia’s borders. Appeasement did not work for Russia.
This was clear from the start. What the Nazi putsch regime did after Nudelman’s coup 2014 after the trade union massacre in Odessa where Nazi criminals bussed in from the Lvov area burned 48 people alive and other unspeakable crimes, was to send the worst kind of (Nato trained) sc*m of the earth Nazi’s they could muster, death squads really, to the Russian speaking regions down south, i.e from Donbass to Odessa. I.e all the regions or oblasts of the southern half that opposed the US imposed Nazi coup, to prevent them from ever rising up again by keeping them in terror and fear.
These people cried and couldn’t belive their eyes when the Russians finally arrived, what took you so long? We have been living in this hell since 2014! If Russia were to leave the Nazi’s would immediately take “revenge” on what they refer to as “cockroaches”, we see it every day: Russia pushes them out, they turn their guns, not at the Russian troops but directly at city centers but western media couldn’t obviously care less as they have turned a blind eye to these “unworthy” victims for 8 years already.
So, obviously, any majority Russian region will be liberated and the rest of 404 will be de-nazified and de-militarized and Nato smoked out. There is no other way.
I keep hoping that Biden/Blinken/Austin will eventually comprehend that every escalation in Ukraine will be countered. But they may be distracted by their efforts to turn Taiwan into Ukraine II.
These people seem to be oblivious to escalating actions or perhaps that’s the plan.
They like war and all the money it makes for the MIC.
Biden, Blinken, Austin, Sullivan, Nuland want World War III to start over Ukraine.
They can ride the first nukes. Strapped.
We all know that,it was a mistake to provoke Russian Federation to invade Ukraine to fight proxy war, and Biden’s cognitive declined getting worst, although bias media keep trying to ignore, although the latest Biden’s hand shake with people they are not there,
As the Russians advances more,what the Americans will do is anybody’s guess.
Europeans forced to support Americans and Biden’s mistake now is visible to public whom they become ” useful idiots” but keeping public ignorant backfired badly as we see that they are not capable to choose capable presidents, Exibit1 is Trump and now,Biden. By choosing Trump,they are risking democracy and so obvious for others that, election was fare but they choose to believe Trump’s ” election was stolen ” and refuse to accept peaceful transition.
And now they all can see Biden’s cognitive decline,and more issues with his health,still we don’t see any demonstration to get rid of Biden.
So keeping Americans ignorant wasn’t a good idea,and reeducation most likely would be huge task.
Well, perhaps this is good and strong Russian Federation like Soviet union to keep the balance of power,and keep them honest.
The Russian counterattack in Ukraine defending against NATO aggression seems to be settling in for a long a war.
Biden was always a Cold Warrior. This is not done despite him. It is his own inclination too.
He was always a draft dodger too.
Eventually the Poles are going to have to decide if they want their country to be a war zone.
They are trying to buy 500 HIMARS and their airforce has got Western gear. I think they are trying not to be a war zone by being able to speak in a way that Russia can understand.
My point was that with the US introducing progressively longer range weapons into the war zone it looks like the front is eventually going to be pushed back to the Polish border, at which point the Poles are going to have to decide if they want their country to be lit up by the Russians, which besides money is the only language the Poles understand.
Well…yes and no, Ted.
On one hand, as reported by Antiwar, Poland polls as the most “justice-” vs “peace-oriented” country re the war; and I believe it is the largest ‘transfer point’ for mainly US-delivered weapons into Ukraine – making it easy to imagine border attacks on the Ukraine side (since Russia does not want to provoke direct NATO engagement).
On other hand, remember how Poland refused to deliver warplanes directly to Ukraine – a potential action the US greenlighted – instead proposing to deliver planes to a NATO airbase in Germany for the US to then deliver. So Poland is fine w/US-NATO military base build up on the Polish side…but it seems to have a sense of ‘limits’…
Well Poland better find those limits because it looks like the war is coming to their doorstep and the US means to keeps its foot in the door, and has its checkbook out. Money on one side, missiles on the other, and at some point those missiles might be nuclear. Hating Russia is Poland’s national pastime but they need to think about how many eggs their omelette may take.
The only language NATO understands is force. They’ve been military dictators so long they actually believe they are invincible.
There are not 500 HIMARS in the world, nor ever likely to be. It would take years to increase those numbers.
Poland is itching to attack, but if they do they are outside NATO’s treaty guarantee, which is limited to defense. The US and maybe UK’s new leader would just call anything they do “defense,” but the others in the EU seem unwilling to go there.
NATO is a mutual defense agreement not a mutual offense agreement I expect most members can tell the difference, although we get a little confused about it from time to time.
It was NATO that attacked Libya and Afghanistan…! So no, they are Not exclusively a defense alliance…!
Serbia was not a threat to NATO, neither was Iraq, Libya, or Syria, or the new one China.
You might be more than a little confused but probably willingly so.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union the path was free for NATO and our governments to place a dagger into the side of Russia. It had to be a former Soviet Republic. The first of such nations available, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, were individually and collectively too puny. It had to be Ukraine. It has always been Ukraine.
In 2014 the Obama administration believed that an opportune moment to act had come with the anti Russian coup in Kiev. The intervention by Obama turned into a spectacular disaster. Ukraine lost the Crimea. Obama’s intended president for Ukraine failed. The Donbas became semi-detached. Then Minsk 1 and Minsk 2.
I still do not quite understand Trump’s Ukrainian policy. He seemed to be more interested in Zelensky’s help to get elected in 2020 than to turn Ukraine into the proverbial dagger in the side of Putin.
Then comes Biden, the collaborator of the 2014 disaster. He created his own disaster by supporting Zelinski’s sabotage of Minsk 2. If that had succeeded the Ukraine would have been close to the intended dagger-ship. Instead Putin invaded.
Now our nation is stuck with a dangerous and for us expensive Russo-Ukrainian war which Ukraine cannot win.
That was not Obama. That was Hillary, and The Blob that successfully used her against Obama.
It is Obama’s fault that he did not take out Hillary, but it was her doing not his.
They want the entire country they have always wanted the entire country. There is no negotiating with them.
And yet their “demands” were nothing of the sort before the US/Nato decided Ukraine would be sacrificed to destroy them.
Wrong, Russia has always wanted to take the entire Ukraine as they claim it belongs to them.
Don’t be so naive, you know better.
“The demands include Ukraine ceasing military action, changing its constitution to enshrine neutrality, acknowledging Crimea as Russian territory, and recognising the separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk as independent states.”
No, you’re wrong. And you can’t be naive enough to think ANYONE wants that entire shithole.
Oh, Now Ukrainian hater too. The real you slowly coming out.
I bet you’ve never been in Ukraine but are quick to characterize it as shithole. Cool.
Who and when were those demands issued? Did it come from the same party that said it would not invade Ukraine and that it was all a fabricated Western Hysteria?
Keep on believing.
I said it’s a shithole, I didn’t say I hate it. How do you hate a piece of land? Libya is a shithole too, do I hate Libya? Most places that are shitholes have a common denominator. The USA.
Those demands were made by Russia. They were cast aside by those that could have prevented the war, the US and NATO. It’s not something that takes faith. It was right there in black and white and the US/NATO fucking refused diplomacy.
Well, I don’t call any country a shithole but that’s just me.
Your quoted demands are from March, and the Kremlin left out a bunch of other demands that were unacceptable because it would’ve rendered Ukraine as another puppet state like Belarus.
I can sugarcoat if you want but it would mean the same thing.
Those demands were pre-invasion. Whether the Kremlin had other demands matters little since the US/NATO refused to sit and negotiate. Plus, Zelensky campaigned on negotiating some of those very things. And Ukraine is a puppet state after all but now they’re dying for that puppet and their country will be in ruins. In the end those demands will look attractive.
The Maidan demonstrations in early 2014, which led to the overthrow of the legally elected Ukrainian government witnessed an estimated 15,000 people marching in celebration of Stepan Bandera’s 105th birthday. The neo-Nazi Svoboda Party along with the Fatherland Party of Yulia Tymoshenko both supported this commemoration of the former Nazi ally and war criminal. In the late 1930s Stepan Bandera became the leader of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) was the name of the Ukrainian partisan paramilitary force that arose from the OUN and fought Soviet armies in the 1940s. During World War II the OUN worked with the German occupation and participated in the massacre of Jews, Poles, and Russians.
In 1943 Bandera’s followers massacred 70,000 Poles the majority of whom were unarmed men, women, and children. This mass killing took place in Volyn, Western Ukraine. In the spring and summer of 1943 peasants of Volyn under the leadership of the Galician intelligentsia using bullets, axes and other improvised means assassinated tens of thousands of Poles living in the villages and towns of the region. The political leadership of the OUN had suddenly realised that the Germans might lose the war. So because of the presence of the Polish population the political leadership had simply decided to get rid of that population to prevent Poland’s claim to Volyn. By 1945 the OUN had, in Eastern Galicia, killed 130,000. Many people had their eyes gouged out and were then hacked to death. After WWII the OUN kept fighting against the forces of the USSR and People’s Poland until 1949.
“To initiate a war of aggression,” said the Nuremberg Tribunal judges in 1946, “is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” From the historical reference in Volyn we can clearly see that Obama in Ukraine is using the supreme international crime as a means of preventing Russia’s claims to the Donbass. And Poroshenko as one of Obama’s missives gives a speech where for the first time in history a Western leader boasts about targeting woman and children. Poroshenko stated….“We (Kiev regime) will have our jobs, they (Donbass, ethnic Russian East) will not. We will have our pensions, they will not. We will have care for children, for people and retirees, they will not. Our children will go to schools and kindergartens… theirs will hole up in the basements. Because they are not able to do a thing. This is exactly how we will win this war!” Keep in mind he is talking about Ukrainians, his fellow countrymen. He openly flouts international law, his militia’s use cluster and phospherous munitions against all conventions. He terrorises civilian populations. This is Poroshenko’s strategy to win this civil war, ethnic cleansing.
I hate Banderites, ie Western Ukrainians. When the war is over the Hague will deal with Banderite filth and they will answer for their many many crimes against humanity.
Want in one hand, sh*t in the other, see which hand gets full first.
The Russian forces haven’t even secured Donbas yet, and after they do they’ll need years to lick their wounds.
Here is a more realistic perspective. According to US officials US & European allies will not be able to maintain current levels of support for Kiev for a prolonged period of time. It would appear that the main goal of the operation is not at all the surrender of Kyiv. It is the destruction of the Western powers and the introduction of a multipolar world.
The Russian Federation through attrition is most effectively implementing the process of dissarm and demilitarisation not only of Ukraine, but of the entire collective West, bleeding out the West and if we continue an economic collapse is coming.
Russia in Ukraine is fighting for the Russian world which includes the Ukraine. Once you see this geopolitical perspective you can understand the war in the Donbass. A war Russia is going to win.
Actually, even now they don’t want it all. They say there will be a rump state left, under Z’s successor.
Russia says one thing today and tomorrow another, but we all know their end state. ALL OF UKRAINE.
That’s what the US wanted by overthrowing the legal government and installing the Regime.
The 2014 broken record.
Yes, US was going to invade Ukraine and take all the land.
Read from a neutral source about the events that led to the coup. Perhaps you’ll learn a bit about the root cause.
Dumb – No one ever implied the US was going to invade Ukraine you dipshit! However, your selective amnesia about 2014 is emblematic of your feigned ignorance of the events.
I wouldn’t trust them a bit.
It’s the U.S. that can’t be trusted.
US isn’t that trustworthy either and we are awfully “invady” ourselves. I wish we wouldn’t do most of the stuff we do do.
I’d like to know how Russia is planning to keep the occupied territory on long term because keeping 200k troops there forever, in a land with majority Ukrainians that don’t want to be under Russian control will be very difficult.
Oh the Russians have a final solution in mind for the Ukrainian problem. Anybody who wants to be Russian is going to get a passport and benefits, and anybody who doesn’t is going to get shown the border, the gulag, or the wall. I think the Russians are going to take the parts that want to be Russian and otherwise immolate the areas that choose to argue the point, but rest assured that f*cking around is not on their agenda.
The portion of Ukraine that Russia is fighting for, didn’t want to be part of the regime that overthrew the democratically elected government of Ukraine (with US planning, assistance, and carrying out) in 2014.
Seriously? Do you read or only listen to RT news? That is a very misinformed comment. Do you even know Ukrainian people? At least one? You sound like the Kremlin.
Oh yeah, end with the playbook 2014 event comment. Here’s a homework for you, next time you meet a Ukrainian, ask he/she about the 2014 coup you talk so much about.
Russia in the Donbass has intervened in the 3rd Donbass war. The first was in 2014 which lead to the Minsk agreements, which Ukraine broke. The second Donbass war was in 2015 which lead to the Minsk2 agreements, which Ukraine broke.
The latest Ukrainian assault began on February 16 when over several days Ukrainian artillery increased its bombardment of Donbas by a factor of 40. Ukraine had 100,000 NATO armed and trained troops on the border of Donbass. Russia went in to protect the Russian speaking people. For 8 years Ukraine has been indiscriminately shelling the people of the Donbass, tens of thousands have died.
Russia reacted to this shelling of civilian populations and on February 24 they preempted the planned NATO ground assault.
Donnie knows all that – but chooses to stick his long neck in the ground and pretends he doesn’t know that.
You sound like Adolf Hitler and he is still greatly admired in Ukraine by the reliable nazis there. They made just wonderful concentration camp guards during the German Nazi reign.
The vast majority of Ukrainians support neutrality. The scenes of joy when the Allies liberate a town are moving. Note – 20 million Ukrainians voted with their feet against the Kiev regime by leaving.
Excellent map Dave…!
Who in the Pentagon, “pledged” that weapons system? And where did the specific authority come from in our democracy. Latest CNN poll shows the American people are against the Biden policy in Ukraine. And we know for sure, Biden is too far gone to be making any decisions.
Could you share the CNN poll you mentioned. I haven’t seen any.
That means you’re not looking. Sorry son, you have to stand on your own two feet and take responsibility to ferret out things on your own. Are you implying that the poll as I said does not exist or are you just too lazy to look up things yourself?
This is the height of insanity and brinksmanship as the US marching further into the deep muddy toward a nuclear war with Russia. The US is backing itself into a diplomatic cul-de-sac.
The US is now sending the last of 16 HIMARS, some already lost, and rockets for them limited in number by US lack of more to send.
Those few can only enrage the Russians, not defeat them. So why is it being done?
Is it mindless?
Or is it deliberately to enrage the Russians and make things worse?
Perhaps it is both, some in the US having no real idea what they are doing, while others are intent on making things worse.
So far, it has accomplished only the obvious — now the Russians openly insist they will take more of Ukraine than they’d said before. To which the US responds they’d have done that anyway. Well, yeah, if no peace is even discussed, the war goes on, and our side keeps losing.
What do you expect the neocons to do? Win? And why would they care about losing? When have they ever faced any consequence for it?
Ukraine done goofed.
Ukraine is a pawn and the payouts to the Zelensky clan were so overwhelming he had no choice but to obey.
“Biden has said the US is prepared to support Ukraine for ‘as long as it takes’ for Kyiv to win the war, and his administration has abandoned diplomacy with Moscow.”
Correction: the Biden administration never “abandoned” diplomacy with Moscow because it never engaged in diplomacy in the first place:
rather, the Biden administration has – from the start – explicitly repudiated diplomacy with Moscow.
This repudiation is key to the US’s basic bullcrap claim that it is not engaged in a proxy war with Russia – making the US the key interlocutor – but that it is ‘really’ a war between Russia and Ukraine.
Fools fly high
Flags of war for profit
Disgrace
Hypocrisy
The game of jingo risk
For a lousy buck
And King of the hill