PASSING THE BUCK

Russia Says It Will Seize More Ukrainian Land in Response to Western Weapons

Foreign minister claims the Western supply of long-range weapons to Ukraine has forced the Kremlin’s hand.

Russia’s foreign minister on Wednesday said Russian forces would aim to seize more Ukrainian land in response to Western supplies of long-range weapons. In an interview with RT Editor in Chief Margarita Simonyan, Sergei Lavrov said the Kremlin’s “geography” had changed due to the supply of long-range weapons like HIMARS rocket systems. “Now the geography is different. It’s by far not just the [Donetsk People’s Republic] and [Luhansk People’s Republic], it’s also the Kherson region, and Zaphorizia region and a range of other territories, and this process continues, and it continues consistently and persistently,” Lavrov said. His comments came after Vladimir Putin on Wednesday blamed Kyiv for the collapse of a preliminary peace deal agreed with the Kremlin just a few weeks after Russian forces invaded Ukraine. Speaking to journalists after a visit to Iran, the Russian president claimed the Kremlin hadn’t seen a desire to implement the terms of the peace deal, adding that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had offered to act as mediators between Russia and Ukraine. The European Union, meanwhile, asked member states to cut gas demand by 15 percent until March due to what European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described as Russia’s “blackmailing” and use of energy “as a weapon.”