Moscow\u0027s military \u0022tasks\u0022 in Ukraine now go beyond the eastern Donbas region, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday.
Lavrov also told state news agency RIA Novosti that Russia’s objectives will expand still further if the West keeps supplying Kyiv with long-range weapons such as the U.S.-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems .
Russian President Vladimir Putin had earlier warned that gas supplies sent to Europe via the huge Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which has been closed for 10 days for maintenance, were at risk of being reduced further. At that time, he said, the focus was on the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics , self-styled Russian-backed breakaway entities in eastern Ukraine from which Moscow has said it aims to drive out Ukrainian government forces.
Nearly four months later, it has taken Luhansk, one of two regions that make up the Donbas, but remains far from capturing all of the other, Donetsk. In the past few weeks it has ramped up missile strikes on cities across Ukraine. In Brussels, a meeting of EU diplomats agreed a new round of sanctions against Russia that are due to target gold as well as more individuals and entities, one person involved in the talks told Reuters.
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