Holding peace talks with Ukraine made no sense right now says Russia, as Moscow signals plans to widen its military offensive to go beyond the eastern Donbas region.

In an interview with state news agency RIA Novosti, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said peace talks with Ukraine didn't "make any sense" as previous talks showed Kyiv had no "desire to discuss anything in earnest."

Russia's top diplomat also said that Moscow's military aims in Ukraine were no longer focused "only" on the country's east, in the clearest acknowledgement yet that its war goals have expanded in the past five months.

Mr Lavrov said geographical realities had changed since Russian and Ukrainian negotiators held peace talks in Turkey in late March that failed to produce any breakthrough.

At that time, he said, the focus was on the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR), self-styled breakaway entities in eastern Ukraine from which Russia has said it aims to drive out Ukrainian government forces.

"Now the geography is different, it's far from being just the DPR and LPR, it's also Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions and a number of other territories," he said, referring to territories well beyond the Donbas that Russian forces have wholly or partly seized.

"This process is continuing logically and persistently," he said, adding that Russia might need to push even deeper.

Ukraine says Russia wants blood, not talks

Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba responded to Mr Lavrov's comments on Twitter, stating Russia wanted "blood, not talks". 

If the West, out of "impotent rage" or desire to aggravate the situation further, kept pumping Ukraine with long-range weapons such as the US-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), "that means the geographical tasks will extend still further from the current line", Mr Lavrov said.

It comes as the United States Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Wednesday the US would send four more HIMARS to Ukraine.

Russia could not allow Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy "or whoever replaces him" to threaten its territory or that of the DPR and LPR with the longer-range systems, he said — referring casually, and without any evidence, to the possibility that the Ukrainian leader might not remain in power.

The foreign minister is the most senior figure to speak openly of Russia's war goals in territorial terms, nearly five months after President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion with a denial that Russia intended to occupy its neighbour.

Mr Putin said then that his aim was to demilitarise and "denazify" Ukraine — a statement dismissed by Kyiv and the West as a pretext for an imperial-style war of expansion.

After being beaten back in an initial attempt to take the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, Russia's defence ministry said on March 25 that the first phase of its "special military operation" was complete and it would now focus on "achieving the main goal, the liberation of Donbas".

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Nearly four months later, it has taken Luhansk, one of two regions that make up the Donbas, but remains far from capturing all of the other, Donetsk.

In recent weeks Russian forces have ramped up missile strikes on cities across Ukraine, including a deadly attack on the central city of Vinnytsia that killed 24 people, including three children. 

EU nations advised to reduce gas usage

In addition to showing no signs of backing down over Ukraine, Mr Putin has warned Russian supplies of gas sent through Europe's biggest pipeline could be further reduced or stopped completely.

As an emergency response, the European Union advised member states on Wednesday to cut gas usage by 15 per cent until March, compared with their average consumption in the same period in 2016-2021.

"And therefore, in any event, whether it's a partial, major cut-off of Russian gas or a total cut-off of Russian gas, Europe needs to be ready."

Deliveries via Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which accounts for more than a third of Russian gas exports to the EU, are due to resume on Thursday after a 10-day halt for annual maintenance.

But supplies via that route had been reduced even before the maintenance outage in dispute over sanctioned parts, and may now be cut further, while flows via other routes, such as Ukraine, have also fallen since Russia invaded its neighbour in February.

The disruptions have hampered Europe's efforts to refill gas storage before winter, raising the risk of rationing and another hit to fragile economic growth if Moscow further restricts flows in retaliation for Western sanctions over the war in Ukraine.

European politicians say Russia is using technical issues as a pretext to cut deliveries. The Kremlin says Russia is a reliable energy supplier and blames sanctions for reduced flows.

Reuters/AFP