Russia now wants to take full control over southern Ukraine

A Russian general announced on Friday that Moscow now wants to take full control over southern Ukraine, contradicting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s previous assertions that the Kremlin had no territorial ambitions.

Russian state news agencies reported that Rustam Minnekayev, deputy commander of Russia's central military district, stated that full control over southern Ukraine would give Moscow access to a breakaway, Russian-occupied part of Moldova in the west called Transnistria. Taking southern Ukraine would also cut off Ukraine’s entire coastline, allowing Russian forces to push hundreds of miles west past the major Ukrainian cities of Mykolaiv and Odesa, Reuters reported.

Although Putin previously stated that Russian forces would scale back operations in Ukraine, Ukraine’s ministry of defense tweeted on Thursday that Moscow “stopped hiding” it’s true intentions.

"They stopped hiding it," Ukraine's defence ministry said on Twitter. Russia had "acknowledged that the goal of the 'second phase' of the war is not victory over the mythical Nazis, but simply the occupation of eastern and southern Ukraine. Imperialism as it is."

A senior EU official said the next couple of weeks were likely to be decisive, Fox News reported. 

"This is not a fairy tale with an imminent happy ending. I think we are likely to see a very significant increase in the intensity of Russian military attacks in the east, I think we are likely to see an intensification of Russian military attacks along the coast," the official told reporters.

Ukrainian military officials have warned that Russian forces increased attacks along the frontline in the east and were poised to launch an offensive in the Kharkiv region, just north of the southeastern Donbas region.

But although Russia has said that its forces actively work to protect civilian lives, the UN human rights office in Geneva has said there is growing evidence of war crimes in Ukraine – including indiscriminate shelling of civilian targets and summary executions.

On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin told his people that Russia had won the war’s biggest fight – the battle for the port city of Mariupol. Putin continued to tell his forces to besiege the city instead of attempting to fight the thousands of Ukrainian troops who remain in a huge steel works in the city.

Washington, however, dismissed the announcement.

"Actions, not words. I think we have to watch and see what the Russians actually do here," Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told CNN, as reported by Reuters. "We still assess that Mariupol is contested, that it hasn't been taken by the Russians and that there's still an active Ukrainian resistance."