Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has announced an expansion of the war in Ukraine, saying Russia's military focus is no longer "only" the east of the country.
Speaking on Wednesday to Russian state media, Lavrov said their objectives will continue expanding if the West keeps supplying Ukraine with long-range powerful weapons.
In the clearest indication yet of Russia's intention to expand the battlefield after five months of the brutal invasion, Lavrov said the nation's military targets now go farther than just the so-called People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.
He said the Kremlin's forces will seek to make progress in areas where Russian forces have already made gains, including the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions and a “number of other territories.”
"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," Lavrov said.
The United States’ supply of HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) has allowed Ukraine to successfully attack Russian positions beyond the front lines with much higher accuracy.
Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu also recently visited soldiers fighting in Donbas and gave them direct orders “to prioritise the destruction” of HIMARs.
The order came just after another ammunition depot in Russian-occupied Kherson was destroyed by the weapons.
On Tuesday, the Biden administration announced another package of security assistance and John Kirby, the US National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, said at a briefing that the package would include "more HIMARS, which the Ukrainians have been using very effectively to make a difference on the battlefield."
This came as Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia's Security Council, said that the country was on track to seize more parts of Ukraine.
Despite this, the British Military believes that Russia is struggling to sustain effective offensive combat amid heavy losses.
The British defence ministry said in an intelligence update that Russia is dealing with "severe under-manning" and that this has maybe come to head, likely "becoming increasingly acute."
"As well as dealing with severe under-manning, Russian planners face a dilemma between deploying reserves to the Donbas or defending against Ukrainian counterattacks in the southwestern Kherson sector", it continued.
