The Russian and the Ukrainian troops traded blows in a fierce close-quarter combat on Sunday in the east part of the war-hit nation as Moscow’s soldiers, supported by intense shelling, attempted to gain a strategic foothold to conquer the region. Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky also made a rare frontline visit to Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, to assess the strength of the national defence. The Russian forces stormed Sievierodonetsk after trying unsuccessfully to encircle the strategic city of the eastern region, Ukrainian officials said. Zelensky described the situation there as “indescribably difficult,” with a relentless Russian artillery barrage destroying critical infrastructure and damaging 90 per cent of the buildings.
Here are top updates on Russia-Ukraine War:
1. Zelensky made his first trip Sunday to the war-torn east since Moscow’s invasion started, as the Russian forces tightened their grip around key cities in the Donbas region. After visiting Kharkiv, Zelensky announced that he had “fired the northeastern city’s security chief,” news agency Reuters reported. The Ukraine president said the top official was dismissed “for not working to defend the city from the first days of the full-scale war, but thinking only of himself,” and that while others had toiled “very effectively”, the former chief had not.
2. The Russian forces kept up their bombardment of the northeastern city from afar, and explosions could be heard shortly after Zelensky’s visit. Shelling and airstrikes have destroyed more than 2,000 apartment buildings in the city since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, according to the regional governor, Oleh Syniehubov.
3. Russian foreign minister Lavrov was quoted as saying on Sunday that the “liberation” of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region is an “unconditional priority” for Moscow; other territories should decide their future for themselves. Having failed to take the capital Kyiv in the early phase of the war, Russia is seeking to consolidate its grip on the Donbas, large parts of which are already controlled by Moscow-backed separatists, reports Reuters.
4. In a television interview later on Sunday, Zelensky said that he believed “Russia would agree to talks if Ukraine could recapture all the territory it has lost” since the invasion Reuters quoted him as saying. But he ruled out the idea of using force to win back all the land Ukraine has lost to Russia since 2014.
5. The Ukrainian government meanwhile urged the West once again to provide it with more longer-range weapons in order to turn the tide in the war, now in its fourth month. The President voiced hopes that the weapons would be provided and that he expected “good news” in the coming days.
6. Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War in Washington said the Russians had still not managed to encircle Sievierodonetsk and the Ukrainian defenders have inflicted “fearful casualties” on them, Reuters reported on Sunday.
7. Meanwhile, Germany has decided to change its constitution to allow for a credit-based special defense fund of 100 billion euros ($107.35 billion) proposed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the German finance ministry announced. An agreement was reached late Sunday to create a special fund for military procurement that will also allow Berlin to achieve NATO’s target of spending two percent of GDP on defence.
8. In terms of diplomatic efforts to end the war, the European Union governments failed to agree on an embargo on Russian oil on Sunday, but will continue talks on a deal to ban seaborne deliveries of Russian oil while allowing deliveries by pipeline. If agreed, a deal would allow Hungary, Slovakia and Czechia to continue to receive their Russian oil via the Druzhba pipeline for some time until alternative supplies can be arranged.
9. More than 30,000 Russian troops have been killed since the Ukraine war started, Kyiv has claimed. Over 60 million people have been displaced from their homes in the war-torn country.
10. The Kremlin launched the offensive against the country to “de-nazify the country”.
(With inputs from Reuters and AFP)