- When the war enters its fourth month, Russia concentrates on the east
- Russia is trying to encircle Ukrainian troops in twin cities
- EU Von der Leyen says Moscow is putting together food
KIEV / SLOVIANSK, Ukraine, May 25 (Reuters) – Russian forces tried to encircle Ukrainian troops in twin cities east of a river while President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that Moscow was trying to destroy the industrial region of the Donbas where he has focused his attacks.
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.
Russian forces have taken control of three cities in the Donetsk region, including Svitlodarsk, regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko told a subsidiary of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.
Register now for FREE and unlimited access to Reuters.com
Sign up
“The situation in Donbas is extremely difficult. All the remaining force of the Russian army is now concentrated in this region,” Zelenskiy said in a speech on Tuesday afternoon. “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 a major 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 territories in Ukraine’s possession.
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, where thousands of civilians had taken refuge for months under relentless bombing.
The reopening came after Ukraine pushed Russian forces largely out of the artillery range of the northern city, as they did from the capital, Kyiv, in March.
THIRD WORLD WAR?
Three months after the invasion, Russia 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.
The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, accused Russia of using food as a weapon. Read more
Financial billionaire George Soros, also speaking in Davos, said the Russian invasion of Ukraine could have marked the start of World War III.
“The best and perhaps only way to preserve our civilization is to defeat Putin as soon as possible,” he said.
Pro-Russian troopers remove branches covering a 2S1 Gvozdika self-propelled shell at their fighting positions in the Luhansk region, Ukraine, May 24, 2022. REUTERS / Alexander Ermochenko
Read more
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, jailed, criticized President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday and turned the Kremlin’s leader into a convicted madman who was killing the people of Ukraine and Russia.
“This is a stupid war that started your Putin,” Navalny told a Moscow appeals court via a video link from a corrective criminal colony. “This war was built on lies.”
Underlining the global tensions triggered by the war, the main ally of the United States, Japan, on Tuesday flew Russian and Chinese warplanes near its airspace while US President Joe Biden was visiting Tokyo. Read more
Meanwhile, in a decision that could push Russia to the brink of default, the Biden administration announced it would not extend an exemption that would expire on Wednesday that would allow Russia to pay off U.S. bonds.
Russia had been allowed to continue paying interest and principal and avoid defaulting on its public debt.
Russian lawmakers gave the first seal of approval to a bill that would allow Russian entities to take over foreign companies that have left the country in opposition to Moscow’s actions in Ukraine, a portal reported in line of government.[nL5N2XG5UG}[nL5N2XG5UG}[nL5N2XG5UG}[nL5N2XG5UG}
On Monday, Starbucks Corp (SBUX.O) became the latest Western brand to announce that it was leaving Russia, following a similar decision by McDonald’s. The trademark of the burger chain “Golden Arches” fell on Monday near Moscow.
EXTERNAL CONFLICTS
Senior Russian officials suggested in comments on Tuesday that the war, which Russia calls a “special operation”, could be prolonged.
Nikolai Patrushev, head of Putin’s security council, said Russia would fight for the time needed to eradicate “Nazism” in Ukraine, a justification for the war that the West calls baseless.
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russia was slowly moving forward deliberately to avoid civilian casualties.
Zelenskiy dismissed these statements as “absolutely unrealistic”.
In Kharkiv, hundreds of people were living underground in trains and stations when authorities asked them to stop on Tuesday.
“Everyone is afraid of madness, because there are still bombings,” said Nataliia Lopanska, who had lived on a subway train 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 city, said the dead were being found among the rubble.
About 200 rotting bodies were buried in rubble in the basement of a tall building, he said. Residents had refused to pick them up and Russian authorities had left the site.
Register now for FREE and unlimited access to Reuters.com
Sign up
Articles by Oleksandr Kozhukhar in Lviv, Pavel Polityuk and Natalia Zinets in Kyiv, Vitaliy Hnidiy in Kharkiv and Reuters journalists in Mariupol and Slovyansk; Written by Costas Pitas and Michael Perry; Editing by Cynthia Osterman, Robert Birsel
Our standards: Thomson Reuters’ principles of trust.