Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said this week that Moscow is expanding its military aims in Ukraine beyond the eastern Donbas region. But the Russian military has been experiencing difficulties on the ground, prompting many to wonder whether it is realistic for the Kremlin to expand the scope of its Ukraine operations.
President Vladimir Putin’s stated goal for the February 24 Russian invasion of Ukraine was the “demilitarisation and de-Nazification of Ukraine”, a prevarication that many took to mean a wholesale Russian takeover, including possible regime change. But Ukraine put up fierce resistance, prompting Russia in late March to say it was focusing its aims on the eastern Donbas region, parts of which pro-Moscow separatists had already seized in 2014.
