Moscow-backed separatists have hit the industrial region of Donbas in eastern Ukraine, demanding the capture of a railway core as concerns grew that besieged cities in the region would suffer the same horrors experienced by the people of Donbas. Mariupol during the weeks before the capture of the port.
Ukrainian officials renewed their calls for more sophisticated Western-supplied weapons. Without him, they said, Ukrainian forces would not be able to stop Russia’s offensive.
Friday’s clashes focused on two key cities: Sievierodonetsk and nearby Lysychansk.
Resident Alexander, 67, inspects his neighbor’s apartment destroyed by bombing in Kutuzivka, near Kharkiv, eastern Ukraine, on Friday, May 27, 2022. (AP Photo / Bernat Armangue) (AP)
Massive NATO war games on the Russian border
These are the last areas under Ukrainian control in Luhansk, one of the two provinces that make up the Donbas and where Russian-backed separatists have already controlled some territory for eight years.
Authorities say 1,500 people in Sievierodonetsk have died since the war began just over three months ago.
“Mass artillery bombardment does not stop, day and night,” said Sievierodonetsk Mayor Oleksandr Striuk.
“The city is being systematically destroyed: 90% of the city’s buildings are damaged.”
Striuk described the conditions in Sievierodonetsk as reminiscent of the Battle of Mariupol, located in the other province of Donbas, Donetsk.
Family and friends attend the funeral of Ukrainian soldier Vitaliy Nejenits in Kharkiv Cemetery in eastern Ukraine on Friday, May 27, 2022. (AP Photo / Bernat Armangue) (AP)
Now in ruins, the port city was constantly attacked by Russian forces in a nearly three-month siege that ended last week when Russia demanded its capture. More than 20,000 of its civilians are believed to have died.
Before the war, Sievierodonetsk was home to about 100,000 people.
Between 12,000 and 13,000 remain in the city,
Striuk said, crammed into shelters and largely isolated from the rest of Ukraine. At least 1,500 people have died as a result of the war, now in its 93rd day.
The figure includes people killed in bombings or fires caused by Russian missile attacks, as well as those who died from shrapnel wounds, untreated diseases, lack of medicine or were trapped under the rubble, the mayor said.
Family and friends attend the funeral of Ukrainian soldier Vitaliy Nejenits in Kharkiv Cemetery in eastern Ukraine on Friday, May 27, 2022. (AP Photo / Bernat Armangue) (AP)
On Friday, there was an assault in the northeastern part of the city, where Russian reconnaissance and sabotage groups tried to capture the Mir Hotel and the surrounding area, Striuk said.
Clues can be found on Russia’s strategy for the Donbass in Mariupol, where Moscow is consolidating its control through measures that include state-controlled emissions programming and revised school curricula, according to an analysis by the ‘Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank.
General Phillip Breedlove, former head of the U.S. European Command for NATO, said Friday during a panel set up by the Washington-based Middle East Institute that Russia appears to have “once again tightened its grip. their goals, and with fear now they seem to be trying to consolidate. ” and enforce the land they have instead of focusing on expanding it. “
Resident Alexander, 67, sweeps the entrance to his bomb-damaged building in Kutuzivka, near Kharkiv, eastern Ukraine, on Friday, May 27, 2022. (AP Photo / Bernat Armangue) (AP)
But the relentless assaults on the Donbas also indicated Russia’s desire to expand its rule. Ukrainian analysts say Russian forces have taken advantage of delays in Western arms shipments to intensify their offensive there.
This aggressive push could be counterproductive, however, seriously depleting Russia’s arsenal. Echoing an assessment by the British Ministry of Defense, military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said that Russia was deploying 50-year-old T-62 tanks, “which means that the world’s second largest army has been left without modernized equipment “.
Russia-backed rebels said on Friday they had seized Lyman, Donetsk’s large railway hub north of two more key Ukrainian-controlled cities.
Ukrainian Presidential Adviser Oleksiy Arestovych acknowledged the loss Thursday night, although a spokesman for the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said on Friday that his soldiers had countered Russian attempts to oust them completely.
A dog walks near a building destroyed by the bombings in Kutuzivka, near Kharkiv, in eastern Ukraine, on Friday, May 27, 2022. (AP Photo / Bernat Armangue) (AP)
As Ukraine’s hopes of halting Russia’s advance faded, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called on Western nations to lay heavy weapons, saying it was the only area in which Russia had a clear advantage.
“Without artillery, without multiple rocket launch systems, we will not be able to push them back,” he said.
Just south of Sievierodonetsk, volunteers hoped to evacuate 100 people from a smaller city. It was a painstaking process: many of Bakhmut’s evacuees were elderly or ill and had to be taken from apartment buildings in soft bunks and wheelchairs.
Minibuses and vans roamed the city and took dozens for the first leg of a long journey west.
“Bakhmut is a high-risk area right now,” said Mark Poppert, an American volunteer who works with the British charity RefugEase.
“We’re trying to get as many people out as we can.”
A woman is transported from her home in an evacuation by volunteers of the charity Vostok SOS in Bakhmut, eastern Ukraine, on Friday, May 27, 2022. Volunteers have rushed to evacuate as many civilians as possible. , especially the elderly and people with mobility problems. , as Russian forces advance into the region. (Photo AP / Francisco Seco) (AP)
In his nightly speech to the nation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said harsh words to the European Union, which has not agreed to a sixth round of sanctions including a embargo on Russian oil.
Hungary, one of Moscow’s closest allies in the EU, is blocking the deal.
Zelenskyy said Russia’s offensive on the Donbas could leave its communities in ashes and accused Moscow of pursuing “an obvious policy of genocide” through mass deportations and killings of civilians.
On Thursday, the Russian bombing of Kharkiv, a northeastern city, killed nine people, including a father and his five-month-old baby, the president said.
Journalists saw the bodies of at least two dead and four injured at a subway station where the victims were transported.
Two couples kiss during their reunion after three months of war-related separation at Kharkiv train station in eastern Ukraine on Friday, May 27, 2022. (AP Photo / Bernat Armangue) ( AP)
In the north, neighboring Belarus, used by Russia as a starting point before the invasion, announced on Friday that it was sending troops to the border with Ukraine.
Some European leaders sought dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin to alleviate the global food crisis, exacerbated by Ukraine’s inability to ship millions of tons of grain and other agricultural products.
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said there had been no progress during Thursday’s talks with Putin.
“If you ask me if there are openings for peace, the answer is no,” Draghi told reporters.
Men work to repair a bomb-damaged building in Makariv, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, on Friday, May 27, 2022. (AP Photo / Natacha Pisarenko) (AP)
Moscow has tried to shift the blame for the food crisis to the West, calling on its leaders to lift existing sanctions.
Putin told Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer on Friday that Ukraine should remove the Black Sea mines to allow safe transport, according to a Kremlin reading of his conversation; Russia and Ukraine have exchanged blame for mines near Ukrainian ports.
Nehammer’s office said the two leaders also discussed a prisoner exchange and that Putin said efforts to organize one would be “intensified.”