In this archive photo from April 16, 2022, Sievierodonetsk resident Viacheslav walks on the rubble of a residential building damaged by a military attack in the Luhansk region as Russia continues its attack on Ukraine. SERHII NUZHNENKO / Reuters
On Wednesday, Russian forces approached the center of an industrial city in a campaign to seize a strip of eastern Ukraine, while the United States said it would supply advanced rockets to Kyiv to help push Moscow to negotiate. the end of the war.
The Ukrainian General Staff said that Russian forces, now 98 days after its invasion, had hit infrastructure in the eastern and southern regions, including the city of Sievierodonetsk, which entered the 27th. May and is the main focus of its ground offensive in the eastern Donbas region.
According to provincial governor Serhiy Gaidai, a Russian airstrike hit the Nitrogen chemical plant in Sievierodonetsk on Tuesday, blowing up a toxic nitric acid tank and releasing a column of pink smoke. He has asked the neighbors to stay inside.
Reuters could not independently confirm the cause of the incident.
U.S. President Joe Biden said Washington will supply precision rocket and ammunition systems as part of a $ 700 million weapons package that is expected to be officially announced on Wednesday.
“We have moved quickly to send a significant amount of weapons and ammunition to Ukraine so that it can fight on the battlefield and be in the strongest possible position at the negotiating table,” Biden wrote in the New York Times.
A Biden administration official said the new supplies, which add to billions of dollars worth of equipment such as drones and anti-aircraft missiles, included the M142 high-mobility artillery rocket system ( HIMARS), which Kyiv has said is “crucial” in countering Russian missile attacks.
Amid concerns that these weapons could lead the United States into direct conflict, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Ukraine has promised Washington that it will not use rocket systems to hit targets inside Russia.
Russia, however, warned of a greater risk of direct confrontation with the United States.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking to Saudi Arabia, said the supply of rocket launchers increased the risks of a “third country” dragged into the conflict.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said such supplies would not encourage Ukraine’s leadership to resume stalled peace talks.
“We believe that the United States is adding fuel to the fire in a determined and diligent manner,” Peskov said.
Shortly after the US decision was announced, the Russian Defense Ministry said that Russian nuclear forces were conducting drills in Ivanovo province, northeast of Moscow, the Interfax news agency reported. The report did not mention the US decision.
Russia has also just tested its Zircon hypersonic cruise missile and will deploy it later this year on a new frigate in its northern fleet, a senior military official said on Wednesday.
The Ukrainian General Staff said that Russian forces continued to strike the northern, southern and eastern districts of Sievierodonetsk.
MURAT YUKSELIR / THE BALLOON AND THE MAIL, SOURCE: GRAPHIC NEWS
If Russia captures the city and its smaller twin Lysychansk on the west bank of the Siverskyi Donets River, it will occupy all of Luhansk, one of the two Donbas provinces that Moscow claims on behalf of the separatists and a key war target of President Vladimir Putin. .
Ukrainian forces control only 20% of Sievierodonetsk, Russian 60% and the rest has become “no man’s land,” Oleksandr Stryuk, the head of the Ukrainian city administration, told Reuters.
“20% are being fiercely defended by our armed forces … Attempts are being made to expel Russian troops … We hope to liberate the city nonetheless …” Stryuk said.
Governor Gaidai said Lysychansk was easier to defend as it was on a hill, but Russian forces would aim it with artillery and mortars once they had full control of Sievierodonetsk.
The leader of the pro-Moscow Lugansk People’s Republic, Leonid Pasechnik, told the TASS news agency that Russian officials had moved more slowly than expected to safeguard the city’s infrastructure and “take caution around of their chemical factories “.
Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council’s aid agency, which has been operating from Sievierodonetsk for some time, said as many as 12,000 civilians remain trapped in the crossfire without sufficient access to water, food, medicine. or electricity.
Before the war, the city was home to about 120,000 people.
The new U.S. package includes ammunition, firearm radars, air surveillance radars, additional Javelin anti-tank missiles and anti-armor weapons, officials said.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Wednesday that Berlin would supply Kyiv with its medium-range ground-to-air defense system IRIS-T.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for more weapons while criticizing the European Union, which on Monday agreed to reduce Russian oil imports, not to sanction Russia’s energy earlier.
The EU will ban imports of Russian oil by sea. Officials said that would stop two-thirds of Russia’s oil exports to Europe earlier and 90% by the end of this year.
In response to the EU oil embargo, Russia expanded its gas cuts in Europe, raising prices and increasing its economic battle with Brussels. Moscow said on Wednesday it could redirect oil exports to limit its losses.
The war has also disrupted Ukraine’s exports of wheat and other commodities, affecting consumers with higher food prices, especially in the world’s poorest countries.
Pope Francis called for the lifting of all blockades on Ukraine’s wheat exports, saying the grain should not be used as a “weapon of war.”
Putin launched what he called a special military operation on February 24 to disarm and “de-Nazize” Ukraine. Ukraine and its Western allies call this an unfounded pretext for a war of aggression.
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