Lavrov names Russia’s "absolute priority" in the war against Ukraine

Kateryna Tyshchenko – Sunday, 29 May 2022, 22:54

Sergey Lavrov, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, has said that Russia’s absolute priority in the war against Ukraine is to capture Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts; he added that people who live in other Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine will have to "decide their future" themselves.

Source: Lavrov in an interview for French TV channel TF1, cited in the Kremlin-aligned Russian news media RIA Novosti and in TASS

Quote from Lavrov: "The liberation of Donetsk and Luhansk oblast, which the Russian Federation recognises as independent states, is an absolute priority."

Details: At the same time, the Russian minister said that in other Ukrainian territories where Russia is conducting its "special military operation", the people who live in those territories will have to "decide their future" themselves.

According to Lavrov, the environment created by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine "banned Russian education, media, culture, and the use of the Russian language in everyday life." In contrast, Lavrov claimed that in the environment that Russia will foster, those who live in Russian-occupied territories "will be able to raise their children however they want, not how Zelenskyy and his team want them to."

Lavrov also tried to argue that the extended duration of Russia’s "special operation" in Ukraine was due to the absolute ban on any attacks on civilian infrastructure that the Russian military has to observe. However, it has been widely reported that Russia has been destroying civilian infrastructure in Ukraine since the beginning of the war.