- Satellite images show damage to the besieged Sievierodonetsk
- Ukraine will launch ‘Book of Executioners’ to detail war crimes
- The US adds more sanctions, the World Bank adds aid to Ukraine
KIEV, June 8 (Reuters) – Ukrainian forces successfully resisted the assault on Sievierodonetsk, General Staff said on Wednesday as Russian troops brought new resources to Donbas in an intense battle for control of the eastern region.
The battle of a few days for the industrial city has become crucial, with Russia focusing its offensive power in the hope of achieving one of its stated goals: to completely capture the surrounding Luhansk province on behalf of the separatists. Russian-speaking.
“The absolutely heroic defense of the Donbas is underway,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video on Tuesday. Sievierodonetsk, Lysychansk and Popasna remain the most difficult places, he added.
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“It is absolutely considered that the occupiers did not believe that the resistance of our military would be so strong and are now trying to bring new resources to the Donbas,” he said.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the situation on the ground.
Since being expelled from Kyiv and Kharkiv, Russia has focused on the region known as the Donbas, formed by the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces, and closer to the Russian border.
Moscow says it is engaged in a “special military operation” to disarm and “deactivate” its neighbor.
Ukraine and its allies call this an unfounded pretext for a war that has killed thousands, crushed cities and forced millions to flee. Zelenskiy said that Ukraine will launch a “Book of Executioners” next week to detail war crimes. Read more
“These are specific facts about specific individuals guilty of specific cruel crimes against Ukrainians,” he said.
Russia says it has done everything possible to prevent attacks on civilians in its operation in Ukraine.
BOMBING
Satellite images from Maxar Technologies (MAXR.N) collected on Monday showed significant damage in Sievierodonetsk and nearby Rubizhne.
“Our soldiers are successfully halting the assault on the city of Sievierodonetsk,” the Ukrainian General Staff said on Wednesday, adding that its troops were also halting attacks on Toshkivka and Ustynivka in the south.
Reuters could not immediately verify the reports.
Luhansk Governor Serhiy Gaidai said on Wednesday that Lysychansk, on the other side of the river from Sievierodonetsk, was also being bombed. A local man was killed on Tuesday in a central street and a woman was hospitalized, he added.
A police expert is working near an apartment building destroyed in a military strike in the middle of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in Kurakhove, Ukraine, on June 7, 2022. REUTERS / Anna Kudriavtseva
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In Sloviansk, about 85 km (53 miles) west of Sievierodonetsk, women with young children lined up for help on Tuesday as other residents carried buckets of water around the city as they prepared for the Russian forces.
“I’ll stay, I won’t leave without my husband. He works here. That’s what we decided, we’re staying,” said Irina, who did not give her last name as she waited with a child in a pram at the exterior of a stroller. aid distribution center.
“It’s hard, but it’s easier when you’re at home.”
Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv, was also attacked by bombing on Tuesday, and the local mayor said one person was killed. The city in the northeast had been quieter in recent weeks.
Viacheslav Shulga, a pizzeria employee in North Kharkiv who was affected, said there was hope that the restaurant could reopen soon.
“Everything is destroyed. We are removing equipment, there will be no business here at the moment,” he said.
More than two weeks after the siege of the southern city of Mariupol ended, the Tass news agency quoted a Russian police source as saying that more than 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers who surrendered there had been transferred to Russia by investigate them. Read more
GLOBAL CRISIS
As the effects of the war are felt around the world, the United States added more sanctions to Moscow by banning U.S. money managers from buying any Russian debt or shares on secondary markets.
The World Bank approved $ 1.4 billion in new funds to help pay the salaries of government and social workers in Ukraine, while he and other countries face damage to their economy. Read more
Ukraine is one of the world’s largest grain exporters, and Western countries accuse Russia of creating the risk of world hunger by closing Ukraine’s Black Sea ports.
Russian attacks on agricultural sites in the Mykolaiv region were exacerbating a global food crisis, southern Ukraine’s military command said on Facebook on Wednesday.
“Those who claim to be concerned about the global food crisis are, in fact, attacking farmland and infrastructure sites where large-scale fires have broken out,” he said.
The governor of the region, which includes the port of Mykolaiv, said weekend bombings had destroyed warehouses at one of Ukraine’s largest agricultural commodity terminals. Read more
Moscow denies responsibility for the international food crisis, blaming Western sanctions.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russian-occupied Ukrainian ports of Berdyansk and Mariupol were ready to resume grain exports. Ukraine says any such shipment from Moscow’s confiscated territory would be illegal looting.
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Reuters report; Written by Himani Sarkar; Edited by Michael Perry
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