A Russian airstrike in Sievierodonetsk has hit a chemical plant. Credit: Internet
Thousands have died in Ukraine and millions more displaced since the Russian invasion on February 24.
The West has become increasingly willing to provide Ukraine with longer-range weapons, including M777 shells, as its forces fight the Russians more successfully than intelligence officials had predicted.
Biden’s calm comes almost two decades after then-President George W. Bush pushed for the invasion of Iraq, which led to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. The invasion triggered a period of regional instability and provoked fierce criticism from around the world.
The US plan seeks to strike a balance between a desire to help Ukraine fight fierce Russian artillery bombardment and a failure to provide weapons that will allow Ukraine to strike targets inside Russia and trigger an escalation of the war.
But US intelligence has also warned of growing risks, especially given a mismatch between Putin’s apparent ambitions and the performance of his army.
US rocket systems
In Biden’s opinion piece, he announced that his administration would send a small number of high-tech, medium-range rocket systems to Ukraine.
This is a critical weapon that Ukrainian leaders have called for as they fight to curb Russian progress in the eastern Donbas region.
People travel by tram to Sievierodonetsk in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine. Credit: AP
U.S. officials say the aid package expected to be unveiled on Wednesday would send what the U.S. considers medium-range rockets that can generally travel about 70 miles.
The expectation is that Ukraine will be able to use rockets in the Donbas region, where both could intercept Russian artillery and eliminate Russian positions in cities where fighting is intense, such as Sievierodonetsk in Luhansk province, east of ‘Ukraine.
The announcement came when a regional governor of Ukraine said a Russian bombing in Sievierodonetsk had caused a leak of toxic nitric acid from an industrial facility.
Nitric acid
Luhansk Governor Serhiy Haidai said a Russian airstrike had hit a nitric acid tank at a chemical plant, causing a massive leak in its fumes.
He posted an image of a huge pink cloud hanging over the city and urged residents not to leave the house and to wear gas masks or make makeshift masks with fabrics soaked in soda solution.
Ukraine said on Tuesday that Russia had taken control of most of the eastern industrial city, a bombed-out wasteland whose capture Moscow has made the main target of its invasion.
Russia’s total assault on the city has been met with fierce resistance from Ukrainian forces. Russia-backed separatists acknowledged that the capture of the city took longer than expected, despite one of the most important ground attacks in the three-month war.
After failing to capture the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and be expelled from northern Ukraine, a Russian victory at Sievierodonetsk and across the Siverskyi Donets River in Lysychansk would bring full control of Luhansk, one of Moscow’s two eastern provinces. on behalf of the separatists.
Western military analysts say Moscow has used manpower and firepower from other parts of the Eastern Front to concentrate on Sievierodonetsk, in hopes of a massive offensive to secure the surrounding Luhansk province for separatist powers.
The Luhansk governor said almost all of Sievierodonetsk’s critical infrastructure had been destroyed and 60% of residential property was irreparably damaged.
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“Most of Sievierodonetsk is under Russian control. The city is not surrounded and the prerequisites for it are not met,” Haidai said. Russian bombing had made it impossible to deliver aid or evacuate people, he added.
A pro-Moscow separatist leader said fighting was mounting in the city, but that Russian officials had advanced more slowly than expected to “maintain the city’s infrastructure” and be cautious around its factories. chemicals.
It has suffered heavy artillery shelling and airstrikes as Russian forces fought Ukrainian troops for control of the city in violent street battles.
The mayor of Sievierodonetsk said Russian forces had occupied about half of the city.
Oleksandr Striuk told the AP in a telephone interview on Tuesday that heavy fighting continued and artillery bombardments threatened the lives of thousands of civilians still taking refuge in the ruined city.
“Half the city has been captured by the Russians and there is a fierce street fight,” Striuk said. “The situation is very serious and the city is being mercilessly destroyed block by block.”
He added that “the Ukrainian army continues to resist this frantic push and the aggression of Russian forces.”
Striuk estimated that 13,000 people remained in the city of a pre-war population of about 100,000, but said it was impossible to track down civilian casualties amid bombings 24 hours a day.
He said more than 1,500 people in the city who had died of various causes had been buried since the war began in February. Evacuation work has been halted due to the danger of bombing.
President Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Head of the Security Council of Russia. Credit: AP
He said that “civilians die from direct blows, from fragmentation wounds and from the rubble of destroyed buildings, as most of the inhabitants hide in basements and shelters.”
Meanwhile, in Russia, the deputy head of the Russian Security Council has alleged that sanctions against the country, including new measures aimed at oil exports, were aimed at hurting ordinary Russians and motivated by hatred. .
Dmitry Medvedev, who is also a former president and prime minister, wrote in the Telegram on Tuesday that the sanctions do not affect Russia’s political elite and will not be “fatal” to big business, but “directed precisely against the people of Russia “. ”.
‘They hate us all!’
He said measures aimed at oil and gas were aimed at forcing the government to introduce budget cuts.
“An embargo on buying oil and gas in Russia? The same thing: reduce budget revenues and force the state to abandon its social obligations [such as raising payments in line with inflation]”He wrote.
The European Union has agreed to a ban on all Russian exports of oil by sea to the EU, but not through a key gas pipeline to some Central and Eastern European countries, including Hungary. The EU has not introduced a Russian gas embargo.
After listing sanctions in various sectors, Medvedev wrote: “They hate us all! The basis of these decisions is hatred of Russia, the Russians and all its inhabitants.”
AP, Reuters
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