Moscow, meanwhile, has made clear it wants to consolidate territorial gains it has made in Ukraine since the February 24 invasion. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told state-run RT television and RIA Novosti news agency in an interview published Wednesday that Russia has expanded the scope of its “special military operation” from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine – where separatists are supported from Russia. have been fighting since 2014 — to include Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions and other regions. He noted that when Russia and Ukraine discussed in March a possible agreement to end hostilities, “our readiness to accept the Ukrainian proposal was based on the geography of March 2022.” “Now it’s a different geography,” he said, also repeating Moscow’s earlier claims that the US and Britain were expanding hostilities. Ukraine has sought to loosen Russia’s control over the southern Kherson region by striking a strategically important bridge. Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the interim administration in the Moscow-backed region, said the Ukrainian military struck the Antonivskyi Bridge, which crosses the Dnieper River, using multiple US-supplied HIMARS rocket launchers. The 1.4 km (0.9 mi) long bridge is the main river crossing in the Kherson region. Knocking it out would make it difficult for the Russian military to continue supplying its forces to the region amid repeated Ukrainian attacks. “The bridge was not closed, traffic on it continues, but the situation is serious,” Stremusov said, according to Interfax. The head of the Moscow-appointed Kherson administration, Vladimir Saldo, said in a video message that passenger vehicles were allowed to continue crossing the bridge, but truck traffic was halted to allow for quick repairs. He noted that trucks could cross the river using a dam 80 kilometers (50 mi) away. Wednesday’s bombing of the bridge was the second in as many days. Early in the war, Russian troops quickly seized the Kherson region just north of the Crimean peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014. They faced Ukrainian counterattacks but largely held their ground. Kherson — site of a major shipbuilding industry at the confluence of the Dnieper River and the Black Sea near Russia’s annexed Crimea — is one of several areas that a US administration spokesman said Russia is trying to annex. After months of local rumors and announcements of a Russian referendum, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday that U.S. intelligence officials have gathered “ample” new evidence that Russia is formally seeking to annex additional territory. of Ukraine and that he could make a “fake”. public vote in September. Russia is looking at Kherson as well as all of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. “Russia is laying the groundwork to annex Ukrainian territory it controls in direct violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty,” Kirby said in Washington. Kirby also said the White House is expected to announce more military aid for Ukraine later this week. The aid is expected to include more HIMARS systems, a critical weapon successfully used by Ukrainian forces. Lavrov claimed that the US was preventing Ukraine from participating in talks on a possible settlement with Russia. “They are keeping them from any constructive steps and not only drawing weapons, but forcing them to use those weapons in an increasingly dangerous way,” Lavrov said. Meanwhile, in a sign of the crippling economic impact of the war in Ukraine, its government said the country would ask investors to allow it to defer foreign debt payments for two years. The Ukrainian attacks on the Kherson bridge come as the bulk of Russian forces are locked in fighting in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland of the Donbas, where they have made slow gains in the face of stiff Ukrainian resistance. Russia has focused more on aerial bombardments using long-range missiles, hitting targets in all parts of Ukraine and killing hundreds of civilians in the process. With indications that Ukraine is planning counter-attacks to try to recapture occupied territories in Kherson and part of the Zaporizhia region, the Russian military in recent weeks has targeted the key Black Sea port of Odessa and parts of southern Ukraine. Ukraine’s presidential office said at least 13 civilians were killed and 40 others were injured in Russian shelling across the country over a 24-hour period. On Wednesday, at least three more people were killed when Russia bombarded the northeastern city of Kharkiv with Hurricane salvo missile systems, authorities said. The victims were a 69-year-old man and his wife and a 13-year-old boy who were waiting at a bus stop. The boy’s 15-year-old sister was injured, according to the Kharkiv District Prosecutor’s Office. In other developments: — An Associated Press investigation has found that many refugees from Ukraine are forced to embark on a surreal journey to Russia, subjected to human rights abuses along the way, stripped of documents and left confused and lost about their whereabouts. — European Union headquarters has suggested member states cut natural gas use by 15 percent in the coming months to ensure that any complete shutdown of Russian gas supplies to the bloc does not fundamentally disrupt industries next winter. While the initial cuts would be voluntary cuts, the Commission has also asked for the power to impose mandatory reductions across the bloc in the event of an EU-wide alert in the event of severe gas shortages or exceptionally high demand. __ Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday that Turkey wants to bind Russia and Ukraine to a written agreement this week and allow millions of tons of Ukrainian grain to be transported from the Black Sea and Russian grain and fertilizer to be sent to global markets. Some 22 million tons of desperately needed grain and other products have been stuck in Ukraine’s Black Sea ports because of the war.
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