Moscow wants Ukraine’s south

Moscow wants to take full control over southern Ukraine, a Russian general said on Friday, a statement Ukraine said gave the lie to Russia’s previous assertions that it had no territorial ambitions.

Rustam Minnekayev, deputy commander of Russia’s central military district, was quoted by Russian state news agencies as saying full control over southern Ukraine would give it access to a breakaway Russian-occupied part of Moldova in the west.

That would cut off Ukraine’s entire coastline and mean pushing hundreds of miles west beyond current lines, past the major Ukrainian cities of Mykolaiv and Odesa.

“They stopped hiding it,” Ukraine’s defence ministry said on Twitter. Russia had “acknowledged that the goal of the ‘second phase’ of the war is not victory over the mythical Nazis, but simply the occupation of eastern and southern Ukraine. Imperialism as it is.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment when asked if Russia had expanded the goals of its operation.

A senior EU official said the next couple of weeks were likely to be decisive.

“I think we are likely to see a very significant increase in the intensity of Russian military attacks in the east, an intensification of Russian military attacks along the coast,” the official said.

Ukraine’s general staff said Russian forces had increased attacks all along the front line in the east and were trying to mount an offensive in the Kharkiv region, north of their main target, the southeastern Donbas region.

In Geneva, the United Nations human rights office said there was growing evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine, including summary executions. It said Ukraine also appeared to have used weapons with indiscriminate effects.

Kyiv says 100,000 civilians are still in Mariupol, the main port of Donbas, and need full evacuation.

Moscow says it has taken 140,000 Mariupol residents to Russia. Kyiv says many were deported by force in what would be a war crime.

Minnekayev, the Russian general, said Russian speakers were oppressed in Transdnistria, a Russian-occupied breakaway part of Moldova on Ukraine’s southwestern border. Moldova and Western leaders say that is untrue.

Moscow gave the same justification for its 2014 annexation of Crimea and backing of separatists in Donbas. Ukraine says it fears Moscow might try to organize fake independence votes in southern areas as it did in the east and Crimea.

British military intelligence reported heavy fighting in the east as Russian forces tried to advance on settlements, but said the Russians were suffering from losses sustained early in the war and were sending equipment back to Russia for repair.