The outcome of this week’s NATO summit in Lithuania has not affected Russia’s military objectives as they pertain to Ukraine, according to Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of the Russian Security Council.
“The special military operation will continue with its goals unchanged,” Mr. Medvedev, who has previously served as both Russia’s president and prime minister, said on July 12.
He went on to assert that one of these goals was keeping Ukraine out of the Western NATO alliance. 
“We have insisted on that from the outset,” Mr. Medvedev said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov holds a news conference at United Nations headquarters in New York on April 25, 2023. (Mike Segar/Reuters)
Russia launched its ongoing invasion of Ukraine early last year. Kyiv and its Western allies decry the move as an unprovoked act of aggression. …