Moscow would not stop at the current contact lines in Ukraine and sought to capture the entirety of four Ukrainian regions it claimed to have annexed via illegal referendums, according to a Wednesday statement by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
“Some say: ‘Okay, let’s leave the line of contact. This is Russian, and this is Ukrainian.’ This will not happen. We have a Constitution based on the will of the people,” Lavrov said at a press conference, referring to Moscow’s illegal referendums in Ukraine.
JOIN US ON TELEGRAM
Follow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official.
In late 2022, Russia announced the annexation of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions after holding what it called referendums in occupied areas of Ukraine. Kyiv and Western governments said the votes breached international law and ruled them as illegitimate and non-representative.
At present, Russia controls almost the entirety of Ukraine’s Luhansk region and the majority of the Donetsk region.
During his speech, Lavrov once again rejected notions of Western troop deployments to Ukraine as part of security guarantees and called for the so-called “root causes” of the invasion to be addressed.
“There are also people who remain there who find it more convenient to speak Russian, who want to preserve the traditions of their ancestors, who were brought up in Russian culture. Therefore, such simple mechanical things as the deployment of [foreign] troops will not do – we need to talk about the root causes,” Lavrov added.
Putin Reiterates Old Demands, With Some Nuances
Russia has been attempting to justify its Ukraine invasion by claiming to protect Russian-speaking populations in Ukraine, a claim that is largely unfounded.
At Monday’s UN General Assembly, Russia attempted to request an amendment to a UN draft resolution by adding a clause to address the so-called “root cause” of the invasion that was ultimately rejected.
You can also highlight the text and press Ctrl + Enter
