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EU leaders have called on Vladimir Putin to be “direct [and] serious negotiations ”with the President of Ukraine.
The German chancellor’s office said Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz “insisted on an immediate ceasefire and the withdrawal of Russian troops” in an 80-minute phone call.
Putin, meanwhile, is open to resuming dialogue with Kyiv, the Kremlin said after the call.
It comes as the Ukrainian and Russian delegations have been subjected to numerous rounds of talks both in person and virtually since the invasion began on 24 February.
The couple also lobbied for the release of 2,500 Ukrainian fighters, who have been prisoners of war at the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol.
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Last week, the Russian military declared Azovstal and the besieged southern port city “completely liberated,” saying the fighters had abandoned the last Ukrainian resistance site there.
It comes as Russian forces intensified their assault on Sievierodonetsk on Saturday, after claiming to have captured the nearby Lyman railway core in eastern Ukraine.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday that its troops and Allied separatist forces now have full control of Lyman, the site of a railway junction west of the Siverskyi Donets River in the Donetsk region coming from Luhansk. .
Meanwhile, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Western sanctions on Russia “have nothing to do” with global food shortages.
In a statement on Twitter, Kuleba said: “Sanctions in Russia have nothing to do with the developing world food crisis.
“The only reason for the shortage, rising prices and the threat of famine is that the Russian military is physically blocking 22 million tons of Ukrainian food exports to our seaports.
“Demand Moscow to end its blockade.”
Russia and Ukraine are major exporters of some of the world’s most important staple foods, accounting for 53 percent of world trade in sunflower oil and seeds and 27 percent of wheat trade, according to the World Trade Conference. United Nations Convention on Trade and Development.
At the moment, Ukraine has stored large quantities of wheat that, due to the war, cannot export.
Moscow and Kyiv have exchanged blame on who is responsible for keeping shipments tied, with Russia saying Ukraine’s sea mines prevented safe passage.
Ukrainian forces may have to withdraw from their last resistance bag in Luhansk to avoid capture, the region’s governor said.
Defending troops are being forced to withdraw to parts of the eastern region of the country where Moscow has changed its focus.
Donbas is home to the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, which Russia claims on behalf of the separatists.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday that the Ukrainian city of Lyman had fallen under the full control of Russian forces and backed by Russia in eastern Ukraine.
It is said that the invading forces have now entered the city of Sievierodonetsk in Luhansk.
Luhansk Governor Serhiy Gaidai has insisted that the Russians will not be able to capture the region “as analysts have predicted.”
“We will have enough strength and resources to defend ourselves. However, we may have to withdraw in order not to be surrounded,” Gaidai told Telegram.
He said 90 percent of Sievierodonetsk’s buildings were damaged by 14 skyscrapers destroyed in the latest bombing.
Speaking to Ukrainian television, Gaidai said there were about 10,000 Russian soldiers based in the region and that they were “trying to make a profit in any direction.”
He said several dozen medical staff were staying in Sievierodonetsk, but that they were having difficulty getting to hospitals due to the bombing.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine was protecting its land “as far as our current defense resources allow.”
The Ukrainian military says it had repulsed eight attacks in Donetsk and Luhansk on Friday, destroying tanks and armored vehicles.
“If the occupiers think that Lyman and Sievierodonetsk will be theirs, they are wrong. Donbas will be Ukrainian,” Zelensky said in a speech.
Gaidai said: “It is clear that our boys are slowly retreating to more fortified positions; we must contain this horde.”
Separately, the senior Ukrainian military official, General Oleksiy Gromov, admitted in a briefing earlier this week that the invading forces had the advantage in Luhansk.
It comes after Boris Johnson warned that Vladimir Putin’s troops were making “tangible progress” in the Donbas region of Ukraine.
The Russian military has been accused of “beating residential neighborhoods relentlessly” during an operation to seize two key cities in the industrial east of Ukraine.
Now, the prime minister said that the Ukrainians had shown “incredible heroism” in pushing back the Russians from the capital Kyiv, but that he had made Putin concentrate all his military force on seizing the Donbas.
“I am afraid that Putin, at great cost to him and to the Russian army, will continue to chew the ground on the Donbas,” the prime minister told Bloomberg TV.
“It continues to make gradual, slow progress, but I fear it is palpable, and it is therefore vital that we continue to give military support to the Ukrainians.”