The US State Department spokesman Ned Price reacted to the words of russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that "russia's military tasks go beyond the Donbas" and stated that such statements would not go unpunished. This is reported by Reuters.
"We've been clear that annexation by force would be a gross violation of the UN Charter, and we would not allow it to go unchallenged. We would not allow it to go unpunished", - State Department spokesperson Ned Price said.
The agency notes that russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and supports the so-called "DNR" and "LNR".
The United States has previously stated it saw signs that russia was preparing to formally annex the territory it seized in Ukraine and vowed to oppose annexation.
As previously reported, on July 20, russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated that moscow plans to capture not only the Donbass and Luhansk region, but also the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts, as well as other territories of Ukraine.