Russia has abandoned its initial military "tasks" and will expand further into Ukraine if West continues to send more weapons, Vladimir Putin's foreign minister warned on Wednesday.

Sergei Lavrov said Russia is no longer focused “only” on eastern Ukraine and that Western military support for Kyiv had changed Moscow’s strategy.

It is the most senior acknowledgement yet that Russia is no longer fighting a limited war to defend the Donbas.

In his de-facto declaration of war on Ukraine on February 24, Putin insisted that "occupation of Ukrainian territory is not in our plans" and has since made no comment to the contrary.

After Russia’s invasion failed to capture the capital Kyiv and topple Ukraine’s government, the Kremlin announced in March it would refocus on capturing the Donbas region, where separatist Russian proxies have been fighting since 2014.

But Mr Lavrov said that Russia would once more widen its aims, despite Russian troops struggling to make ground in a grinding artillery war.

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