Russia occupies the Luhansk, Donetsk, Cherson and Zaporizhia regions of Ukraine. However, the Kremlin claims that there are no plans to add new areas. It is already "a lot of work" to keep the east of Ukraine.
According to the Kremlin, Russia is not currently planning to incorporate new territories in its war against Ukraine. "There is no talk of that," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according to the Russian news agency Interfax. Rather, there is "a lot of work" to wrest the incorporated areas from Ukrainian control.
Russia had annexed the Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions under international protest from Ukraine and the West. No country recognizes this breach of international law. Most recently, Ukraine had liberated parts of the regions from Russian occupation. Peskov spoke literally of a "liberation" of the areas occupied by Ukraine. International law, on the other hand, clearly sees Russia as the occupying power, and the territories belong to Ukraine.
The Kremlin spokesman also said that Moscow still sees the danger of an attack on the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014. The authorities in the Crimean metropolis of Sevastopol again reported the shooting down of a Ukrainian drone by the Russian Black Sea Fleet. "There is no doubt that the risk still exists because the Ukrainian side is continuing its line of organizing terrorist attacks," said Peskov. However, the air defense shows that the countermeasures worked.
The Kremlin spokesman also rejected statements from Germany, for example, according to which Ukraine should not limit itself to its own territory in its defense against Russian aggression. This would widen the conflict, Peskow warned. Most recently, Russian territory had been repeatedly shelled.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that the nuclear power would not use its nuclear weapons for a first strike, but only in response to its own protection. To deter the United States and the other NATO countries, Putin had the nuclear weapons put on increased readiness to prevent the West from militarily intervening in the conflict.
