Updates from the 88th day of the invasion
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The most intense fighting focused on the eastern cities of Sievierodonetsk, Lysychansk.
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The Polish president addresses the Ukrainian parliament in Kyiv and reaffirms his support.
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Russia claims airstrikes in the eastern Donbas region south of Mykolaiv.
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Zelensky says between 50 and 100 Ukrainians die every day on the eastern front of the war.
Ukraine ruled out a ceasefire or any territorial concession to Moscow as Russia stepped up its attack on the east and south of the country on Sunday, hitting the Donbas and Mykolaiv regions with airstrikes and artillery fire.
Kyiv’s position has become increasingly uncompromising in recent weeks, as Russia has experienced military setbacks, while Ukrainian officials have worried that they could be pressured to sacrifice land for a peace deal.
“The war must end with the complete restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty,” Ukrainian Presidential Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak said in a Twitter post on Sunday.
Ukraine’s chief negotiator, Mykhailo Podolyak, ruled out any territorial concessions and rejected calls for an immediate ceasefire, saying it meant Russian troops would remain in the occupied territories, which Kyiv could not accept.
A local passes in front of an anti-war sign in the capital Kyiv on Sunday. (Ivan Alvarado / Reuters)
“He [Russian] The forces must leave the country and then the resumption of the peace process will be possible, “Podolyak told Reuters in an interview on Saturday, referring to calls for an immediate ceasefire as” very strange. “
The concessions will be counterproductive because Russia would take advantage of the break in the fight to come back stronger, he said.
The latest calls for an immediate ceasefire have come from US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi.
Polish President in Kyiv
Polish President Andrzej Duda offered support to Warsaw and told lawmakers in Kyiv on Sunday that the international community should demand Russia’s complete withdrawal and that sacrificing any of them would be a “huge blow” to the entire West.
“There are worrying voices saying that Ukraine should give in [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s demands, “said Duda, the first foreign leader to address the Ukrainian parliament in person since the Russian invasion on February 24.
“Only Ukraine has the right to decide on its future,” he said.
Polish President Andrzej Duda, on the left, embraces Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a session of the Ukrainian parliament in Kyiv on Sunday. (Reuters)
Speaking at the same parliamentary session, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky renewed a petition to tighten economic sanctions against Moscow.
“Half measures should not be used when stopping aggression,” he said.
Shortly after the two had finished speaking, a siren sounded in the capital, a reminder that the war continued even though its front lines were now hundreds of miles away.
Zelensky told a news conference with Duda that between 50 and 100 Ukrainians die every day on the eastern front of the war in what appeared to be a reference to military casualties.
Donbas Offensive
Russia is carrying out a major offensive in Luhansk, one of the two provinces of the Donbas, after ending weeks of resistance by the last Ukrainian fighters in the strategic port city of Mariupol in the southeast.
The most intense fighting centered around the twin cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, Interior Ministry adviser Vadym Denysenko told Ukrainian television on Sunday.
The cities form the eastern part of a Ukrainian-controlled pocket that Russia has been trying to invade since mid-April after failing to capture Kyiv and shifting its focus to the east and south of the country.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Sunday that its forces had hit Ukrainian command centers, troops and ammunition depots in Donbas and the southern Mykolaiv region with airstrikes and artillery.
Reuters was unable to independently verify these battlefield reports.
Russia-backed separatists already controlled parts of Luhansk and neighboring Donetsk before the invasion, but Moscow wants to seize Ukraine’s remaining territory in the region.
Smoke rises on Sunday from an oil refinery following an attack on the city of Lysychansk in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas. (Aris Messinis / AFP / Getty Images)
A blast has seriously injured a Russian-appointed mayor in the city of Enerhodar, Russia’s RIA reported. Reuters could not immediately establish what caused the blast.
The end of fighting in Mariupol, the largest city Russia has captured, gave Putin a rare victory after a series of setbacks in nearly three months of fighting.
The last Ukrainian forces that hid the large Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol have surrendered, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Friday.
A person goes through a destroyed apartment building in the Bakhmut city of Donbas on Sunday. (Aris Messinis / AFP / Getty Images)
Although Ukraine has not confirmed the full withdrawal, the commander of the Azov Regiment, one of the factory’s units, said in a video that the Ukrainian military command had ordered troops to withdraw to preserve the their lives. The regiment is a far-right armed group that joined the Ukrainian National Guard after the first invasion of Russia in 2014.
Full control of Mariupol gives Russia command of a land route linking the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow seized in 2014, with mainland Russia and parts of eastern Ukraine in the hands of pro-Russian separatists .
Putin calls the invasion a “special military operation” to disarm Ukraine and rid it of radical anti-Russian nationalists. Ukraine and its allies have rejected it as an unfounded pretext for war, which has killed thousands of people in Ukraine, displaced millions and destroyed cities.