KRAMATORSK, Ukraine –
As Russia touts progress on its goal of seizing all of eastern Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin on Saturday tried to shake the European determination to punish his country with sanctions and to continue supplying weapons that they have supported the defense of Ukraine.
Russia’s defense ministry says Lyman, Russia’s second small town, has been “completely liberated” by a joint force of Kremlin-backed Russian and separatist soldiers who have been at war for eight weeks. years in the Donbas industrial region, border. Russia. Was
Ukraine’s train system has transported weapons and evacuated citizens via Lyman, a key railway hub in the east of the country. Its control would also give the Russian army another foothold in the region; it has bridges for troops and equipment to cross the Siverskiy Donets River, which has so far prevented Russian advance on the Donbas.
The Kremlin said Putin held an 80-minute phone call with leaders in France and Germany on Saturday warning of continued transfers of Western weapons to Ukraine and blamed the disruption of the conflict on global supplies. food to Western sanctions.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron have called for an immediate ceasefire and the withdrawal of Russian troops, according to the chancellor’s spokesman. Both urged Putin to engage in serious direct negotiations with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to end the fighting, the spokesman said.
A reading from the Kremlin of the call between Macron, Putin and Scholz said that the Russian leader claimed “the openness of the Russian side to the resumption of dialogue.” The three leaders agreed to keep in touch, according to the reading.
But Russia’s recent progress in Donetsk and Luhansk, the two provinces that make up the Donbas, could further undermine Putin. Since failing to occupy Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, Russia has set out to seize the last parts of the region not controlled by the separatists.
“If Russia were to seize these areas, the Kremlin would most likely consider it a substantial political achievement and would be represented to the Russian people as evidence of the invasion,” the British Defense Ministry said in an assessment on Saturday.
Russia has stepped up efforts to capture the largest cities in Sievierodonetsk and nearby Lysychansk, which are the last major Ukrainian-controlled areas in Luhansk province. Zelenskyy described the situation in the east as “difficult”, but expressed confidence that his country would prevail with the help of Western weapons and sanctions.
“If the occupiers think Lyman or Sievierodonetsk will be theirs, they are wrong. Donbas will be Ukrainian,” he said.
The governor of Luhansk reported that Ukrainian fighters repelled an assault on Sievierodonetsk, but Russian troops still pushed to encircle them. Speaking to Ukrainian television on Saturday, Governor Serhii Haidai said the Russians had seized a hotel on the outskirts of Sievierodonetsk.
The mayor of Sievierodonetsk, Oleksandr Striuk, said on Friday that about 1,500 civilians in the city with a pre-war population of about 100,000 had died there during the war, even from lack of medicine or diseases that could not be treat.
Advancing Russian forces feared that residents would experience the same horrors as the people of the southeastern port city of Mariupol in the weeks leading up to the fall. Residents who had not yet fled were faced with the option of risking it now or staying behind.
Just south of Sievierodonetsk, AP reporters saw elderly and sick civilians grouped in soft bunks and slowly descending the stairs of the apartment building on Friday in Bakhmut, a city in the northeast of Donetsk Oblast.
Svetlana Lvova, the manager of two buildings in Bakhmut, tried to persuade reluctant residents to leave, but said she and her husband would not evacuate until her son, who was in Sieverodonetsk, returned home.
“I need to know he’s alive. That’s why I’m staying here,” said Lvova, 66.
On Saturday, people who managed to escape from Lysychansk described the intensified bombings, especially over the past week, which left them unable to get out of the basement air raid shelters.
Yanna Skakova said she left town on Friday with her 18-month-old and 4-year-old children. She cried as she sat on a train bound for western Ukraine. She said her husband stayed to take care of her house and the animals.
“It’s too dangerous to stay there now,” he said, wiping away his tears.
A nearly three-month siege of Mariupol ended last week when Russia claimed full control of the city. Mariupol became a symbol of mass destruction and human suffering, as well as Ukraine’s determination to defend the country.
According to reports, the port of Mariupol has resumed operations after Russian forces finished clearing the mines in the Sea of Azov in front of the previously vibrant city. Russia’s Tass State News Agency reported that a ship bound for the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don had entered the Mariupol seaport early Saturday.
The Kremlin said Putin had stressed to Macron and Scholz that Russia was working to “establish a peaceful life in Mariupol and other liberated cities from the Donbas.”
Ukrainian authorities have reported that Kremlin-based officials in confiscated cities have begun broadcasting Russian news, entering Russian area codes, importing Russian school curricula and taking other measures to annex the areas.
Russia-controlled areas of the Kherson region of southern Ukraine have changed to Moscow time and “will no longer change to daylight saving time, as is usual in Ukraine,” the Russian state agency was quoted as saying. RIA Novosti, Krill Stremousov, a local official based in Russia. saying Saturday.
The war in Ukraine has caused food shortages worldwide because the country is a major exporter of cereals and other commodities. Moscow and Kyiv have exchanged accusations over which side was responsible for keeping shipments tied to ports, with Russia saying Ukraine’s sea mines prevented safe passage and Ukraine citing a Russian naval blockade.
The press service of the Ukrainian Naval Forces said that two Russian missile carriers “capable of carrying up to 16 missiles” were ready for action in the Black Sea. He said only sea routes that had been established through multilateral treaties could be considered safe.
As Ukraine tries to defend the Russian invasion, officials in the country have pressured Western nations to obtain more sophisticated and powerful weapons. The U.S. Department of Defense did not confirm a CNN report on Friday that said the Biden administration was preparing to send long-range rocket systems to Ukraine.
Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Anatoliy Antonov, called the move “unacceptable” on Saturday and called on the Biden administration to “abandon statements on Ukraine’s military victory.”
A Telegram publication on the Russian embassy’s official channel quoted Moscow’s top diplomat in Washington as saying that “the unprecedented bombing of weapons in Ukraine significantly increases the risk of an escalation of the conflict.”
Moscow is also trying to derail Sweden and Finland’s determination to join NATO. Russia’s Defense Ministry said its navy had successfully launched a new hypersonic missile from the Barents Sea. The ministry said the newly developed Zircon hypersonic cruise missile had hit its target some 1,000 kilometers away.
If confirmed, the launch could pose problems for NATO’s trips to the Arctic and North Atlantic. Zircon, described as the world’s fastest non-ballistic missile, can be armed with a conventional or nuclear warhead, and is said to be impossible to stop with current missile defense systems.
Moscow’s claims, which could not be immediately verified, came a week after Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu announced that Russia would form new military units in the west of the country in response to offers from Sweden and Finland. to join NATO.
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Karmanau reported from Lviv, Ukraine. Andrea Rosa in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Andrew Katell in New York, and AP journalists from around the world contributed.
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