Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said the country's military focus in Ukraine is no longer only the east of the nation. Mr Lavrov said in an interview with Russia's state-controlled RT television and RIA Novosti news agency that Russia had expanded the scope of its "special military operation" in Ukraine from the Moscow-backed Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the east to the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions and other territories.
Since the invasion started, the West has supplied Ukraine with increasingly powerful weapons to use in its defence against Russian forces. Mr Lavrov said this had forced Russia to further expand its objectives.
"We cannot allow the part of Ukraine controlled by (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelensky... to possess weapons that would pose a direct threat to our territory," Mr Lavrov said. "The geography is different now," he said, naming the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions as Russia's latest objectives.
He repeated earlier claims by Moscow about the US and Britain being interested in expanding hostilities. Mr Lavrov said "they want to turn it into a real war and provoke a clash between Russia and European countries".
He claimed the US was preventing Ukraine from engaging in talks on a possible settlement with Russia. "They are keeping them from any constructive steps and not only pumping in weapons but forcing them to use those weapons in an increasingly risky way," Mr Lavrov said.
Russia invaded Ukraine in February, falsely claiming that Russian-speakers in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region had suffered a genocide and needed to be liberated. Five months on, Russia has occupied parts of the east and south of the country.
However, the country has failed in its original aim of capturing Kyiv and has since claimed its main objective was the liberation of Donbas.
