KYIV, Ukraine: Ukrainian troops suffered setbacks after retaking parts of flashpoint eastern city Severodonetsk from Russian forces, local officials said on Monday, as the see-saw battle raged on for the strategically important city.
With Russia bringing the weight of its artillery to bear around Severodonetsk — the largest city in the Lugansk region not under Russian control — more help was promised from abroad.
The United Kingdom said it would follow the United States and send long-range missile systems to Ukraine, defying warnings from Russian President Vladimir Putin against supplying Kyiv with the advanced weapons.
Thousands of civilians have been killed and millions forced to flee their homes since Putin ordered Russian troops into Ukraine on February 24.
Fighting since April has been concentrated in the east of the country, where Russian forces have made slow but steady advances after being beaten back from other parts of Ukraine, including the capital Kyiv.
“Fighting is very fierce in Severodonetsk,” regional governor Sergiy Gaiday told Ukraine’s 1+1 television.
“Our defenders managed to counter-attack and liberate half of the city, but the situation has worsened for us.”
Russian forces “are destroying everything with their usual scorched earth tactics” so that “there’s nothing left to defend,” he said.
Gaiday said on Sunday that Kyiv’s troops had “cleared half of Severodonetsk and are moving forward,” after Ukrainian forces earlier appeared on the verge of being driven out of the city.
Artillery strikes have intensified on Severodonetsk and neighboring city Lysychansk, where pensioner Oleksandr Lyakhovets said he had just enough time to save his cat before the flames engulfed his flat after it was hit by a Russian missile.
“They shoot here endlessly... It’s a horror show,” the 67-year-old told AFP.
Lysychansk was among areas visited on Sunday by President Volodymyr Zelensky, who “got himself acquainted with the operational situation on the front line of defense,” the presidency said.
In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday blasted European countries for blocking his plane from traveling to Serbia, saying: “The unthinkable has happened.”
“This was a deprivation of a sovereign state of the right to carry out foreign policy,” Lavrov told an online press conference in Moscow after several of Serbia’s neighbors prevented his plane from passing through their airspace.
Lavrov had been due to hold talks with top officials in Belgrade, one of Moscow’s few remaining allies in Europe since the launch of its military offensive in Ukraine.
Serbian daily Vecernje Novosti reported that Bulgaria, Macedonia and Montenegro had refused access to their airspace.
While Serbia has condemned Russia’s military action in Ukraine, it has not joined the European Union in imposing sanctions in Moscow, despite its bid to join the bloc.
Ukraine has asked supporting countries for ever more powerful arms to fend off the Russian attack, and its deputy defense minister stressed on Sunday this support was needed until Moscow was defeated.
The United States last week said it would supply Ukraine with advanced missile systems, the latest in a long list of weaponry sent or pledged to the pro-Western country.
But Putin said long-range missile supplies to Ukraine meant “we will draw the appropriate conclusions and use our arms... to strike targets we haven’t hit before.”
Unveiling the latest UK contribution, Defense Secretary Ben Wallace insisted Ukraine’s Western allies must maintain their weapons deliveries to enable it to win.
The UK defense ministry said London had coordinated closely with Washington over its gift of the multiple-launch rocket systems, known as MLRS.
The M270 launchers, which can strike targets up to 80 kilometers (50 miles) away with precision-guided rockets, will “offer a significant boost in capability for the Ukrainian forces,” the ministry added.
Western powers have imposed increasingly stringent sanctions on Russia but divisions have emerged on how to act, particularly on whether to engage in dialogue with Russia.
Russian troops now occupy a fifth of Ukraine’s territory, according to Kyiv, and Moscow has imposed a blockade on its Black Sea ports, sparking fears of a global food crisis.
Ukraine and Russia are among the top wheat exporters in the world. Some 30 percent of the world’s grain exports originate from the warring countries.
The United Nations said it was leading intense negotiations with Russia to allow Ukraine’s grain harvest to leave the country.
Ukraine suffers setbacks in strategic city Severodonetsk
https://arab.news/b72p9
Ukraine suffers setbacks in strategic city Severodonetsk
- The United Kingdom said it would follow the United States and send long-range missile systems to Ukraine
Zelensky says Russia using Belarus territory to circumvent Ukrainian defenses
- While President Lukashenko has vowed to commit no troops to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, he allowed Russia to use Belarusian territory to launch its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine
KYIV: President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday that Russia was using ordinary apartment blocks on the territory of its ally Belarus to attack Ukrainian targets and circumvent Kyiv’s defenses.
The Kremlin used Belarusian territory to launch its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine and Belarus remains a steadfast ally, though longstanding President Alexander Lukashenko has vowed to commit no troops to the conflict.
“We note that the Russians are trying to bypass our defensive interceptor positions through the territory of neighboring Belarus. This is risky for Belarus,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram after a military staff meeting.
“It is unfortunate that Belarus is surrendering its sovereignty in favor of Russia’s aggressive ambitions.”
Zelensky said Ukrainian intelligence had observed that Belarus was deploying equipment to carry out its attacks “in Belarusian settlements near the border, including on residential buildings.
“Antennae and other equipment are located on the roofs of ordinary five-story apartment buildings, which help guide ‘Shaheds’ (Russian drones) to targets in our western regions. This is an absolute disregard for human lives, and it is important that Minsk stops playing with this.”
The Russian and Belarusian defense ministries did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Zelensky said the staff meeting also discussed ways of financing interceptor drones, which officials in Kyiv see as the best economically viable means of tackling Russian drone attacks, which have grown in intensity in recent months.
The president said the Ukrainian military’s general staff had been charged with working out changes to strategy in fending off air attacks “to defend infrastructure and frontline positions.”
Lukashenko this month said Russia’s Oreshnik ballistic missile system, described by Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin as impossible to intercept, had been deployed to Belarus and entered active combat duty.
An assessment by two US researchers, reported by Reuters on Friday, said Moscow was likely stationing the nuclear-capable hypersonic Oreshnik at a former air base in eastern Belarus, a development that could bolster Russia’s ability to deliver missiles across Europe.
