Russia -- At War With Ukraine -- and Europe

"Now the geography is different, it's far from being just the DPR and LPR  [Donetsk Peoples Republic/Luhansk Peoples Republic], it's also Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions and a number of other territories [beyond he Donbas which the Russian military has wholly or partially sized]."

"This process is continuing logically and persistently."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov

 

"[Moscow is using a similar] playbook [to its takeover of Crimea, when it annexed the Ukrainian peninsula by organizing a sham referendum in 2014]."

"[I am] exposing [the Russian plans] so the world knows that any purported annexation is premeditated, illegal and illegitimate. [There will be a quick response from the U.S. and its allies]."

"[Areas targeted for annexation included Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk; regions Lavrov claims are now Russian objectives]."

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby 

A Russian soldier stands guard in Kherson, Ukraine. Moscow’s war aims now extend to the southern provinces of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia  AP

 

As fortunes change in Russia's invasion of Ukraine, its original intention to march on Kyiv, occupy Ukraine's capital and decapitate its government failed as a result of Ukraine's lack of cooperation in allowing itself to return to the satellite status of years gone by under the Soviet Union. Ukrainian resistance proved too great, its military prowess too successful in destroying Russian war materiel and servicemen for the Kremlin to sustain, so its troops were withdrawn.

And a face-saving proclamation was made with proper pomp and little ceremony that Moscow's goal, after all, was to secure the entire Donbas, eastern Ukraine's industrial heartland, to be administered by ethnic Russian Ukrainian opponents of an independent Ukraine. Ukrainian resistance to Moscow's plans for its future continue to aggravate the Kremlin with its growing and successful counter-offensive. While all of Luhansk is now in Russian control, the Donetsk region remains elusive.

Yet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov claims it's full steam ahead on the Kremlin's new strategy to widen its ambitions and expand the conflict beyond the Donbas. Russia responding to what Lavrov speaks of as the interference of Western powers who annoyingly continue to provide Kyiv with long-range weaponry like the US.-produced High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS).

US-supplied long range weapons have changed Moscow's calculus, Mr Lavrov says   Getty Images

 

Five months of Russian troops bashing Ukrainian towns and cities, reducing hospitals, schools and apartment buildings as well as military installations to rubble have failed to produce the unequivocal victory that Moscow claims is rightfully theirs as a defender of freedom from fascism of the people of Ukraine. A people that have ungratefully viewed the destruction of their nation's infrastructure with alarm and hatred toward the aggressor.

As punishment for Ukraine's steadfast defence against its neighbour's intentions, Moscow is looking further in preparation of formally annexing seized territory. Russia wanted "blood, not talks", commented Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, commenting on Moscow's intransigence in insisting that fascists ruled Ukraine and it is Russia's duty as a good neighbour intent on securing its own security, to demolish cities, create millions of homeless and refugees and murder thousands of civilians.

This, as Russian President Vladimir Putin warns Europe that gas supplies via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, shuttered for weeks for maintenance, remained at risk of an even more reduced flow; a classic case of turning the screw as a punishment for Europe's response sanctioning Russia over its illegal occupation of a third of Ukraine.