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SLOVIANSK, Ukraine – Russian forces advance on Thursday toward the eastern Ukrainian city of Slovyansk, striking Ukrainian troops with artillery as Russian President Vladimir Putin compares his search to that of Russia’s first emperor, Peter the Great.
Pro-Kremlin media reported that Russian forces were beginning a new stage of their assault on the east, with plans to soon take Slovyansk and the nearby city of Kramatorsk. The Ukrainian army said in a statement that Russian forces are focusing the fight on Slovyansk, targeting villages on its outskirts, although Ukrainian forces are struggling to maintain their territory.
The artillery boom could be felt in both cities, and fierce street fighting continued in the nearby strategic city of Severodonetsk. Some 10,000 civilians remain trapped in the city, Mayor Oleksandr Stryuk said in a televised interview.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the struggle for Severodonetsk as “probably one of the most difficult in this war,” adding that the battle for control of the eastern Donbas region, which Putin has declared a key goal, it was “deciding” there.
Meanwhile, a Russian-backed court in the separatist region of Donetsk has sentenced two Britons and a Moroccan to death, Russian state media reported on Thursday. The trio represents the first foreign fighters convicted since the start of the war in late February.
“They are in hell”: Russian artillery is testing the morale of Ukraine
The men, Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner of Britain and Brahim Saadoune of Morocco, were accused of working as foreign mercenaries in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, which Moscow recognized as independent on the eve of the invasion. The court where they were tried is not internationally recognized.
The three fighters will have 30 days to travel; if pardon is granted, the death penalty may be replaced by a sentence of 25 years imprisonment. Executions in the DPR were carried out by a firing squad, and the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported that the men would be shot.
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said on Thursday that it had successfully launched a counterattack against Russian forces around the key city of Kherson and recaptured part of the territory it had lost in the southern region.
“As a result of a successful counterattack by Ukrainian defenders on the Kherson front, the occupiers lost part of the temporarily occupied territories and suffered loss of labor and equipment,” the ministry said in a Telegram publication. .
The ministry did not provide further details on which areas it covered, and The Washington Post was unable to independently verify the allegations. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said in its latest intelligence assessment that “Russian forces are intensifying their operations in the northwestern United States. Kherson Oblast in response to recent counterattacks by Ukraine. “
The mayor of the stormed Severodonetsk said the humanitarian situation in the city was getting worse, with fierce fighting and no electricity or water and little food.
“At the moment, evacuation is impossible,” Stryuk said in a television interview, describing how the main bridge leaving the city in nearby Lysychansk was being bombed and infrastructure destroyed.
Tensions continue to rise over an impending global food crisis, with senior UN officials working on an agreement to export Ukrainian and Russian food products. The foreign ministers of Russia and Turkey said they had “substantial” talks on opening a sea corridor for wheat from Ukraine, but did not announce any agreement.
The European Union said on Thursday it would give the equivalent of about $ 220 million in humanitarian aid to Ukraine, as a 27-country bloc official visited a suburb of Kyiv. The EU said in a press release that the aid was needed “in light of the growing humanitarian needs in Ukraine.”
As war breaks out in the east of the country and an assault on Slovyansk seems closer and closer, an increasingly strange atmosphere has descended on this small town, where the water remains cut off due to an attack. military in the nearby infrastructure.
On Thursday, an airstrike siren cried non-stop in the background like a young woman who only identified with Katya playing the violin in front of a walled grocery store: her case was open on the ground in the hope that the passers-by would save him some change.
Former factory workers lined up on the sidewalk to sell vegetables they picked from their own orchards, their only chance to make money after their jobs dried up at the start of the war. Soldiers roamed the streets, some wounded, others stocked with snacks before returning to the front line.
In the city center, civilians rushed to remove books, documents and equipment from the city library, “in case they were bombed,” said a 62-year-old librarian named Tatiana as she loaded materials into a van. A sign hung on the side door of the building announcing that the humanitarian volunteers who worked there were no longer distributing any aid.
The mayor of Slovenia, Vadym Lyakh, said in a television interview that the Russians have been threatening to attack their city for a month and that “the danger has persisted ever since.”
General Mark A. Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said this week that there are plans to train Ukrainian soldiers on how to use multi-launch rocket artillery. Ukrainian military officials and ground troops have lamented delays in Western military aid to the country. They said foreign powers were sitting on crucial military equipment while Russian forces mistreated Ukrainian forces, causing massive casualties and forcing Ukrainians to withdraw from certain positions across the Donbas.
Ukraine suffers on the battlefield while demanding US weapons
Milley’s comments increased the likelihood that more weapons could be sent to Ukraine. The arrival of more military aid is expected to significantly increase the ability of downed Ukrainians to retreat against Russian forces.
Civilians and soldiers here say assistance may not arrive soon enough. At a checkpoint not far from the front line, an American flag is flying under a Ukrainian flag, a look at the dependence of Ukrainian troops on U.S. support in their fight against Russia.
On Wednesday, artillery struck a school in the city of Bakhmut, where Russian forces are also increasingly concentrating their military power. The remains of books from his destroyed library were scattered on the ground.
Nelya Puzina, 66, went through the aftermath as she assessed the damage, with a look of horror and fear on her face.
“We’re suffering here, living in a nightmare, waking up from convulsions,” Puzina said. “We are praying for weapons.”
“Please give us a gun,” he added, or Putin “will wipe us off the face of the earth.”
Ilyushina reported from Riga. Heidi Levine in Bakhmut; Isabelle Khurshudyan in Kyiv; Dan Lamothe, Cate Cadell and Reis Thebault in Washington; Adela Suliman in London; and Annabelle Chapman in Paris contributed to this report.