As comments from Russia’s foreign ministry demonstrated the Kremlin’s objectives had expanded throughout the five-month battle, the Ukrainian armed forces claimed on Thursday that they had killed 111 Russian soldiers in the south and east over the previous day.
Russia’s military “tasks” in Ukraine now extend beyond the eastern Donbas region, according to Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking to the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti on Wednesday.
Lavrov added that if the West continues to give Kiev long-range weaponry like the US-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, Moscow’s goals would grow even more (HIMARS).
That implies that the geographical tasks will go beyond the current line, he explained.The drone hit on a nuclear power plant there, according to the Russian-installed authority in the partially controlled Ukrainian province of Zaporizhzhia, did not harm the reactor.
Reuters was unable to independently confirm the claim. The Ukrainian government was silent at the time.
In the midst of what they claimed were mainly unsuccessful attempts by Russian ground forces to advance, the Ukrainian military reported intense and occasionally lethal Russian shelling.
Ukrainian forces claimed they killed more than 100 Russian soldiers and damaged 17 vehicles, some of them armoured, over the previous 24 hours.
The soldiers claimed in a Facebook post that they didn’t observe any indications that Russia was forming special strike squads to advance a new offensive.
A large number of people have been killed, millions have been displaced, and cities have been destroyed by Russia’s invasion, notably in regions of Ukraine that speak Russian. As Ukraine and Russia are both significant grain producers, it has also increased the price of energy and food globally and heightened fears of starvation in less developed nations.
