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.
