Russian forces tried to encircle Ukrainian troops in twin cities east of a river while President Volodymyr Zelenskyi warned that Moscow was trying to destroy the industrial region of the Donbas where it has focused its attacks.
Key points:
- When the invasion of Ukraine enters its fourth month, Russia concentrates on the east
- Russia is trying to encircle Ukrainian troops in twin cities
- European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen says Moscow is assembling food
Russia is trying to seize the two provinces of the Donbas, claimed by the separatists, Donetsk and Luhansk, and trap Ukrainian forces in a pocket on the main eastern front.
Musa Magomedov, a member of the Ukrainian parliament, said Russian forces were bombing Avdiivka, a city in the Ukrainian-controlled part of Donetsk, “in a totally inhumane way.”
“They are killing civilians and destroying the city we have built with so much love,” Magomedov, director of a coke plant in Avdiivka, told Telegram.
The Ukrainian military says Russia had intensified its use of aircraft to support ground forces because it lacked supplies of high-precision missiles.
The remaining Russian forces were concentrated in the Donbas region
Russian forces have taken control of three cities in the Donetsk region, including Svitlodarsk, regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko told a local branch of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.
“The situation in Donbas is extremely difficult. All the remaining force of the Russian army is now concentrated in this region,” Zelenskyy said in a speech on Tuesday night.
“The occupiers want to destroy everything.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comments sent by e-mail out of hours.
The easternmost part of the pocket of the Ukraine-controlled Donbas, the city of Sievierodonetsk on the east bank of the Siverskiy Donets River and its twin Lysychansk on the west bank, have become the main battlefield.
Russian forces were advancing from three directions to encircle them.
“The enemy has focused its efforts on carrying out an offensive to encircle Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk,” said Serhiy Gaidai, governor of Luhansk province, where the two cities are among the last remaining territories in Ukraine.
Zelenskyy’s office said the Russians launched an offensive in Sievierodonetsk early Wednesday and that the city was under constant mortar fire.
Luhansk Regional Governor Serhiy Gaidai said six civilians were killed and at least eight were injured, most near anti-aircraft shelters in Sievierodonetsk.
Local women try to stay alive while the Ukrainian military patrols an area in the Donetsk region. (Reuters)
The Ukrainian military says it had repulsed nine Russian attacks on the Donbas on Tuesday, in which Moscow troops had killed at least 14 civilians, using planes, rocket launchers, artillery, tanks, mortars and missiles. Reuters could not immediately verify the information.
As a sign of Ukraine’s success elsewhere, authorities in its second largest city, Kharkiv, reopened the underground subway railway, where thousands of civilians had taken refuge for months under relentless bombing.
The move came after Ukraine expelled Russian forces from much of the northern city’s artillery camp, as they did from the capital Kyiv in March.
The European Commission says the food supply is being put together
Three months after the invasion, Moscow still has limited gains to show its worst military losses in decades, while much of Ukraine has suffered devastation in the largest attack on a European state since 1945.
More than 6.5 million people have fled abroad, thousands have died and cities have been reduced to rubble.
The war has also led to growing food shortages and rising prices due to sanctions and disruptions in supply chains.
Both Ukraine and Russia are major exporters of grain and other commodities.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has accused Russia of using food as a weapon.
Russia says it is ready to offer a humanitarian corridor for food-carrying ships to leave Ukraine in exchange for lifting some sanctions, Interfax news agency reported on Wednesday, citing Russia’s deputy foreign minister. , Andrei Rudenko.
Underlining global tensions triggered by the war, Japan, a key U.S. ally in Asia, rioted on Tuesday after Russian and Chinese warplanes approached its airspace as US President Joe Biden visited Tokyo. for the Quad meeting, which also included Australia.
Read more about the Russian invasion of Ukraine:
Comments from senior Russian officials on Tuesday suggested plans for a protracted conflict ahead of time.
Nikolai Patrushev, head of the security council of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Moscow would fight for as long as it took to eradicate “Nazism” in Ukraine, a justification for the war that the West called baseless.
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russia was slowly moving forward deliberately to avoid civilian casualties.
Zelenskyy dismissed the statements as “absolutely unrealistic”.
Hundreds of refugees at a Kharkiv metro station for months. (Reuters)
They are still dead among the rubble
In Kharkiv, hundreds of people were still living underground in trains and stations when authorities asked them to stop on Tuesday so that train services could resume.
“Everyone is afraid of madness, because there are still bombings, rocket attacks have not stopped,” said Nataliia Lopanska, who had lived in a subway for most of the war.
Russian bombing continued in the city and the wider area, regional governor Oleh Sinehubov said.
The Donbas fighting follows Russia’s biggest victory in months: the surrender last week of the Ukrainian garrison in the port of Mariupol after a siege in which Kyiv believes tens of thousands of civilians were killed.
Petro Andryushchenko, an aide to the Ukrainian mayor of Mariupol now operating outside the Russian-controlled city, said the dead were still being found among the rubble.
About 200 rotting bodies were buried in rubble in the basement of a tall building, he said.
The locals had refused to pick them up and the Russian authorities had left the place, leaving a stench all over the district.
Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to search, up and down arrows by volume. Clock duration: 1 minute 40 seconds 1m 40s A Russian soldier receives life imprisonment for killing an unarmed civilian in the first war crimes trial of the Ukrainian war.
Reuters
Posted 4 hours, 4 hours ago, Wednesday, May 25, 2022 at 7:28 AM, updated 1 hour, 1 hour ago, Wednesday, May 25, 2022 at 10:13 AM