The Kremlin said on Tuesday that there are "many" people living in Ukraine's southern regions - Odessa and Nikolaev - who want to "link their fate with Russia" but are afraid to speak out, "Reuters" reports, quoted by News.bg.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, answering a hypothetical question about what would happen if people in these regions were allowed to vote on whether to become part of Russia, did not provide evidence to support his claim.
Russia has been deliberately silent about the scale of its territorial ambitions in Ukraine. It claims to have started a war there in 2022, in part to protect Russian-speakers from oppression - an argument dismissed by Kiev and its Western allies as untrue.
In 2022, Moscow declared that four regions of Ukraine - Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia - were now part of Russian territory, after holding referendums that were condemned by Kiev and Western countries as illegal and forced.
Any official statements suggesting that Moscow sees pro-Russian support in other parts of the country are therefore potentially worrisome for Ukraine.
"Definitely, both in Odessa and Nikolaev, there are many people who would certainly like to link their fate with Russia," Peskov told reporters.
"These people are unlikely to be able to come out in support of this now; "it would simply be life-threatening," he added.
Russia has repeatedly launched missile strikes on Ukrainian cities, including Odessa and Nikolaev, with missiles and drones during the war, which has killed tens of thousands of people, including many civilians. Moscow denies targeting civilians.
Russia is still far from controlling all four regions it annexed in 2022. But nationalists, including former President Dmitry Medvedev, have periodically said it should eventually push much deeper into Ukraine and seize areas including Nikolaev and Odessa, a major Black Sea port.
Taking Nikolaev and Odessa, in addition to other regions occupied by Russia, would deprive Ukraine of any Black Sea coastline, turning it into a severely reduced landlocked country. Russia previously annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014.
In response to a separate question, Peskov said that Europe would be better off seeking dialogue with Russia on security issues rather than seeking to build a "drone wall".