Russia declares expanded war goals beyond Ukraine's Donbas
LONDON, July 20 (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday that Moscow's military "tasks" in Ukraine now went beyond the eastern Donbas region, in the clearest acknowledgment yet that it has expanded its war goals.
In an interview with state media nearly five months after Russia's invasion, the foreign minister also said peace talks made no sense at the moment because Western governments were leaning on Ukraine to fight rather than negotiate.
Ukraine's foreign minister retorted that Russia wanted "blood, not talks".