Intelligence Commented on “Adjustment of Geographic Coverage of Russian Campaign” and Explained Putin’s Motives

Ukrainian intelligence believes that the recent statement about “adjustment of geographic coverage of Russian military campaign” was made by Sergey Lavrov, the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, in the context of planned annexation of other Ukrainian territories, as Vadym Skibitskyi, a representative of Defence Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, said.

"What does Lavrov’s statement means? It means that they are preparing the grounds to decide a further fate оr a status of the temporarily seized Ukrainian districts in the southern part of the country. These are primarily Kherson Region and a part of Zaporizhzhia Region”, Skibitskyi said. 

According to him, Lavrov’s statement is a prerequisite for future Russian attempts to hold fake referendums and annex the seized territories.

"The first thing is they claimed that they have accomplished their mission in Luhansk Region, and the next step would be to reach the administrative borders of Donetsk Region in order to finally end this “epic saga” with full control over Luhansk and Donetsk Region. The second thing is that they are creating pre-requisites for holding so-called “referendums” and annexing the seized areas in the southern part of the country”, Skibitskyi explained.    

He also added, that the matters were actively discussed in Kremlin.

"What will this process look like? We will see. Now the political elites in Moscow are discussing the ways to make this process as transparent for global community as possible. One of the elements of this strategy is the active issue of Russian passports”, the Defense Intelligence representative added.

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