While Russia claimed progress on its goal of seizing all of the controversial 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 have supported the defense of Ukraine.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Lyman, the second small town to fall this week, had been “completely liberated” by a joint force of Kremlin-backed Russian and separatist soldiers who had been at war in the region for eight years. industrial estate of Donbas, bordering Russia.
Ukraine’s train system has transported weapons and evacuated citizens via Lyman, a key railway hub in the east.
The rubble hangs from a heavily damaged residential building in a Russian bombing raid in Bakhmut, eastern Ukraine, eastern Ukraine on Saturday, May 28, 2022. Clashes have taken place around Lysychansk and neighboring Sievierodonetsk, the last major Ukrainian-controlled cities in the Lugansk region. (Photo AP / Francisco Seco) (AP)
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.
In his video address on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the situation in the east as “very complicated”.
He said “the Russian army was trying to get at least some results” by focusing its efforts there.
The Kremlin said Putin had an 80-minute phone call with leaders of France and Germany on Saturday warning against continued transfers of Western weapons to Ukraine and blamed the disruption on the conflict in the global supply of 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, and called on Putin to start serious and direct negotiations with Zelenskyy to end the fighting. .
A Kremlin reading of the call said Putin had stated “the openness of the Russian side to the resumption of dialogue”.
The three leaders, who had spent weeks without speaking during the spring, agreed to keep in touch, he added.
People receive humanitarian aid in the village of Andriivka, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Saturday, May 28, 2022. (AP Photo / Andriy Andriyenko) (AP)
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 be represented before 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 cities of Sievierodonetsk and nearby Lysychansk, which are the last major Ukrainian-controlled areas in Luhansk.
Luhansk Governor Serhii Haidai reported that Ukrainian fighters repelled an assault on Sievierodonetsk, but Russian troops still pushed to encircle them.
On Saturday, he said, Russian forces had seized a hotel on the outskirts of the city.
The mayor of Sievierodonetsk, Oleksandr Striuk, said the previous day that about 1,500 civilians in the city, which had a population of about 100,000 before the war, had died, even from lack of medicines or diseases they could be treated.
Russia’s advance has raised fears that residents may experience the same horrors as in the southeastern port city of Mariupol in the weeks before the fall.
Australian mining giant leaves Russia
Residents who had not yet fled were faced with the option of trying it now or staying.
Just south of Sievierodonetsk, AP journalists saw large, sick civilians grouped in soft bunks and slowly descending the stairs of the apartment building on Friday in Bakhmut, a city in Donetsk.
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 Sievierodonetsk, 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 bombing, especially over the past week, which left them unable to get out of the basement air raid shelters.
Yanna Skakova left the city on Friday with her 18-month-old and 4-year-old children and cried as she sat on a train bound for western Ukraine. 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.
The port of Mariupol has reportedly resumed operations after Russian forces cleared the mines in the Sea of Azov.
People fleeing Lysychansk sit on an evacuation train at Pokrovsk Train Station in eastern Ukraine in eastern Ukraine on Saturday, May 28, 2022. ‘have been produced around Lysychansk and neighboring Sievierodonetsk, the last major Ukrainian-controlled cities in the Luhansk region. (Photo AP / Francisco Seco) (AP)
The Russian state news agency Tass reported that a ship bound for Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia entered port early Saturday.
In a call with Macron and Scholz, the Kremlin said, Putin stressed that Russia was working to “establish a peaceful life in Mariupol and other liberated cities from the Donbas.”
Germany and France negotiated a peace agreement in 2015 between Ukraine and Russia that would have given a high degree of autonomy to Moscow-backed rebel regions in eastern Ukraine.
However, the deal stalled long before the invasion of Russia in February.
Any hope that Paris and Berlin will anchor a renewed peace deal now seems unlikely with Kyiv and Moscow taking uncompromising positions.
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.
Massive NATO war games on the Russian border
The Russian-controlled areas of southern Kherson region have shifted to Moscow time and “will no longer be switched to daylight saving time, as is usual in Ukraine,” the state news agency was quoted as saying. Russian RIA Novosti, citing Krill Stremousov, a local official based in Russia. saying Saturday.
In his speech on Saturday, Zelenskyy also accused Russian forces of preventing Kherson residents from leaving, saying they were indeed “trying to take people hostage” in “a sign of weakness.”
The war has caused food shortages worldwide because Ukraine is a major exporter of cereals and other commodities.
Moscow and Kyiv have negotiated charges over which side is responsible for keeping shipments tied, 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 ships “capable of carrying up to 16 missiles” were ready for action in the Black Sea, adding that only the sea routes established through treaties multilaterals can be considered safe.
Ukrainian officials have pressured Western nations to obtain more sophisticated and powerful weapons.
A Ukrainian military man passes by a gypsum plant destroyed in a Russian bombing raid on Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine in eastern Ukraine on Saturday, May 28, 2022. shot around Lysychansk and neighboring Sievierodonetsk, the last major Ukrainian-controlled cities in the Luhansk region. (Photo AP / Francisco Seco) (AP)
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.
Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Anatoliy Antonov, said on Saturday that the move would be “unacceptable” and warned the White House to “abandon statements about Ukraine’s military victory.”
Moscow is also trying to awaken Sweden and Finland’s determination to join NATO. Russia’s Defense Ministry said its navy successfully launched a new hypersonic missile from the Barents Sea that hit its target some 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) away.
If confirmed, the launch could pose problems for NATO’s trips to the Arctic and North Atlantic.
The Zircon, described as the fastest non-ballistic missile in the world, may be armed with a conventional or nuclear warhead and is said to be impossible to stop with current defense systems.
Last week, Russian 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.