Updates from the 90th day of the invasion
-
Russia has brought a “crazy number” of fighters and equipment to the Luhansk region, says governor
-
Bodies found in the Mariupol building, it is not clear when they died.
-
Ukraine says at least 14 civilians were killed Tuesday in Russian attacks in the east.
-
A military spokesman says eastern Ukraine is facing “large-scale aggression” by Russia.
-
The latest Canadian contribution to the fighting in Ukraine is 20,000 rounds of artillery, usable in howitzers.
-
The President of the European Commission believes that Russia is targeting grain stores.
WARNING: This story contains graphic details of death
The Ukrainian governor of the eastern Luhansk region said on Tuesday that the area was facing “the most difficult time” since the conflict with Russian-backed separatists began in 2014.
“Now, for the Luhansk region, it is the most difficult time of the eight years of war,” Serhii Haidai wrote in the messaging application Telegram. “The Russians are advancing in all directions at the same time; they were carrying a crazy number of fighters and equipment.”
He also accused Moscow troops of deploying scorched earth tactics in the region, one of two that make up the industrial core of eastern Ukraine.
Two men carry a wooden panel on Tuesday next to badly damaged buildings and destroyed cars in Bakhmut, eastern Ukraine. (Francisco Seco / The Associated Press)
“It’s just getting worse. What the Russians are doing is hard to describe in words. The invaders are killing our cities, destroying everything around them.
“The situation is about to be critical. The free region of Luhansk is now like Mariupol,” Haidai said, referring to the ruined port city captured by Moscow last week.
Find bodies in Mariupol
Workers digging in the rubble found 200 bodies in Mariupol, Ukrainian authorities said on Tuesday, another sad discovery in the city that has seen some of the worst suffering of the three-month war.
The bodies found in the basement of a collapsed apartment building were in a state of disrepair and a stench pervaded the neighborhood, said Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to the city’s mayor.
Launched into the Sea of Azov, Mariupol was hit relentlessly during a month-long siege that finally ended last week after some 2,500 Ukrainian fighters left a steel plant where they had fought their last fight.
Russian forces already had the rest of the city, where an estimated 100,000 people remain outside a pre-war population of 450,000, many trapped without food, water, heat or electricity.
An aerial view from a drone on Sunday shows heavily damaged residential buildings near Azovstal Iron and Steel Works in the southern port city of Mariupol. (Pavel Klimov / Reuters)
The announcement of the discovery of the bodies came shortly after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of waging a “total war” in an attempt to inflict as much death and destruction as possible on his country.
He noted a missile attack that killed 87 people last week in the town of Desna, 55 kilometers north of Kyiv, one of the deadliest individual attacks in the war.
“And there were only four missiles,” he said, noting the hundreds of such attacks since the start of the war on Feb. 24.
Performance report brochures
The Kremlin is now focused mainly on the eastern industrial heart of the Donbas, where Russian forces have stepped up efforts to encircle and capture Severodonetsk and neighboring cities of Lysychansk and Rubizhne in the Luhansk region, British military officials said on Tuesday.
Prussian soldiers reportedly used a howitzer to fire pamphlet shells at Severodonetsk on Tuesday. The brochures contained instructions for the delivery process.
Members of the pro-Russian troop service carried pamphlet shells to their fighting positions in the Luhansk region of Ukraine on Tuesday. (Alexander Ermochenko / Reuters)
Russian forces have achieved “some localized successes” despite strong resistance from Ukraine in embedded positions, the UK Defense Ministry said, but the fall of Severodonetsk and the surrounding area could cause logistical problems for the Russians. .
“If the first line of the Donbas moves further west, this will widen Russian communication lines and you will probably see your forces face more logistical resupply difficulties,” the ministry said.
Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk painted the battle there in harsher terms on Tuesday during a televised briefing.
“We are now watching the most active phase of the large-scale aggression that Russia has developed against our country,” he said.
TARGET | Intense drums to Severodonetsk:
The UK says Russia is stepping up attacks in eastern Ukraine, gaining little ground
The UK Defense Ministry says Russian forces are trying to capture the entire Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine with new attacks.
The Ukrainian army said on Tuesday that Russian troops had killed at least 14 civilians and wounded 15 more in mass attacks in the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk.
In a Facebook post, he said Russian troops had used planes, multiple rocket launchers, artillery, tanks, mortars and missiles in their assault on the two regions, much of which is controlled by Russian-speaking separatists.
In its quest for victory in the Donbas, Moscow has withdrawn some forces from the vicinity of Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv.
TARGET | The West must keep up the pressure on Russia, says Zelensky.
Zelensky calls for maximum Russian sanctions, UN diplomat resigns
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for maximum sanctions against Russia as it faces resistance in the Donbas region, and a key Russian diplomat at the United Nations says he is ashamed of his country.
There, residents lined up for rations of tea, sugar, pasta and cereal, offering plastic bags to receive cups of flour and other supplies.
Kharkiv resumed subway service on Tuesday and called on hundreds of people who had used the subway as an anti-aircraft shelter for the past three months to release the train cars, but many said they were still too scared to return home. .
“Everyone is afraid of madness, because there are still bombings, the rocket attacks have not stopped,” said Nataliia Lopanska, who has been living in a train car for almost three months.
Meanwhile, a Russian-based official in the Kherson region of Ukraine said the pro-Kremlin administration would ask Moscow to set up a military base there.
“It is vital and will become a security guarantee for the region and its residents,” said Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the administration.
Passengers take the subway to Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday. The Kharkiv metro resumed service on Tuesday morning after it was closed for more than two months during Russian attempts to capture the city. (Bernat Armangue / The Associated Press)
Meanwhile, two senior Russian security officials promised on Tuesday that Moscow would achieve all the goals set for the “military operation” in Ukraine, seeming to address the fact that the invasion, which many expect to be a war blitz, has entered. in its fourth month.
Russia’s Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said in an interview on Tuesday that the Russian government “is not pursuing the deadlines.”
TARGET | Expect dozens of more war crimes trials due to the war between Russia and Ukraine, says the expert:
Expect dozens more war crimes trials due to war between Russia and Ukraine, says expert
Aiming at unarmed civilians during the war is “always criminal,” said Michael Newton, a law professor and former U.S. State Department official. There are dozens more war crimes trials coming out of the war between Ukraine and Russia, he said.
On the third day of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, Ukraine was the main target.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, speaking to the WEF, accused Russia of deliberately bombing Ukrainian grain warehouses and arming food supplies.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has led to disruptions in world food supplies and the blockade of Ukrainian ports has been particularly damaging. Ukraine accounted for 90 percent of pre-war grain and oilseed exports, according to the European Union.
Von der Leyen said some 20 million tonnes of wheat are currently stranded in Ukraine.
TARGET | Former US Ambassador to NATO speaks to CBC News about expanding alliance:
“And on top of that, Russia is now accumulating its own food exports as a form of blackmail: curbing supplies to raise world prices or trading wheat in exchange for political support,” he said. “This is using hunger and grain to wield power.”
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Tuesday called on U.S. allies to increase financial support for Ukraine, saying the funds announced so far would not be enough for the country’s short-term needs.
“Ukraine’s funding needs are significant,” Yellen said in comments prepared for the Brussels Economic Forum.
The European Union will propose a new loan package to Ukraine on Wednesday to provide immediate liquidity, along with commitments for long-term reconstruction. Although the short-term package is still being defined, two officials familiar with the talks told Reuters that they expected it to cover Ukraine’s financial needs for about two months.
The Canadian government announced on Tuesday that it has raised nearly $ 100 million in military aid to Ukraine, Canada’s largest individual donation of military equipment to the country since the start of the Russian invasion.
The $ 98 million donation will include 20,000 155mm artillery shells, the standard NATO artillery projectile, fuses and cargo bags, Defense Minister Anita Anand said.