U.S. envoy: Russia intends to dissolve Ukraine from world map

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said Friday there should no longer be any doubt that Russia intends to dismantle Ukraine “and dissolve it from the world map entirely.” Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the U.N. Security Council that the United States is seeing growing signs that Russia is laying the groundwork to attempt to annex all of the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk and the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, including by installing “illegitimate proxy officials in Russian-held areas, with the goal of holding sham referenda or decree to join Russia.” Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov “has even stated that this is Russia’s war aim,” she said. Mr. Lavrov told an Arab summit in Cairo on Sunday that Moscow’s overarching goal in Ukraine is to free its people from its “unacceptable regime.” Apparently suggesting that Moscow’s war aims extend beyond Ukraine’s industrial Donbas region in the east comprising Donetsk and Luhansk, Mr. Lavrov said: “We will certainly help the Ukrainian people to get rid of the regime, which is absolutely anti-people and anti-historical.” Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador Dmitry Polyansky told the Security Council on Friday that “The de-Nazification and demilitarisation of Ukraine will be carried out in full.” “There must no longer be a threat from this stage to Donbas, nor to Russia, nor to the liberated Ukrainian territories where for the first time in several years people are finally able to feel that they can live the way they want,” he said. Mr. Polyansky also warned Western nations supplying long-range artillery and MLRS surface-to-surface rockets that they were shifting “the provisional security line” further toward the west, “and in so doing clarifying even further the aims and objectives of our special military operation.” Ms. Thomas-Greenfield went after countries that say “one country’s security should not come at the expense of another’s,” asking what they call Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He told the council, “Putting one’s own security above that of others, attempting to strengthen military blocs, establishing absolute superiority.will only lead to conflict and confrontation, divide the international community and make themselves less secure.” Critical of diplomacy The U.S. ambassador also went after nations that call for all countries to embrace diplomacy without naming Russia, saying: “Let us be clear: Russia’s ongoing actions are the obstacle to a resolution to this crisis.” Again she named no countries but a significant number of nations in Africa, Asia and West Asia take this approach.