As pointed out in Thomas-Greenfield’s Friday speech, US sees growing signs that Russia is preparing to annex all of Ukraine’s eastern oblasts and southern Kherson and Zaporizhia oblasts, incl. by installing there “illegal representatives in the occupied territories, aiming to organize fictitious referendums or to promulgate decrees on the adhesion of (these territories) to Russia”.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov “even said that this was the goal of the war waged by Russia”, underlined the American ambassador. As she recalled, during a recent visit to Cairo, Lavrov said Moscow’s overriding goal in Ukraine was to liberate its citizens from the “unacceptable regime.” “We will certainly help the Ukrainian people to get rid of the regime which is absolutely anti-social and anti-historical” – said Lavrov in Cairoquoted by AP.
Thomas-Greenfield also talked about evidence of increasing atrocities by Russian troopsincluding reports of bombings of schools and hospitals, “killing relief workers and journalists, attacking civilians trying to flee, brutal murders” of residents of Bucza near kyiv at a time when the city was occupied by Russian forces.
There is also evidence, she said, that Russian troops “interrogated, forcibly detained and expelled hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens, including children – uprooting them from their homes and sending them to remote areas of eastern Russia”.
