Zelensky rebukes West as Russia closes in on key Ukraine city
KYIV, Ukraine — Fierce battles raged in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday, with Russian troops on the verge of encircling a key industrial city, as President Volodymyr Zelensky issued a bitter rebuke of the West for not doing enough to help Kyiv win the war.
Lugansk regional governor Sergiy Gaiday described fighting outside of the industrial city of Severodonetsk, a key military goal for Russia, as "very difficult," saying Russian troops were shelling the city from the outskirts with mortars.
"The coming week will be decisive," Gaiday said in a video posted on Telegram, adding he believes Russia's goal is to "capture the Lugansk region no matter what cost".
"There is a colossal amount of shelling," he added.
Earlier in the day, addressing the World Economic Forum in Davos, Ukraine's Foreign Ministry Dmytro Kuleba compared the battle for Donbass to the epic battles fought in World War II and said his country "badly" needs multiple launch rocket systems to match Russian firepower.
In Kyiv, Zelensky echoed that plea.
"We need the help of our partners — above all, weapons for Ukraine. Full help, without exceptions, without limits, enough to win," Zelensky said in his daily address to the nation.
And he called out the international community for paying too much attention to Russia's interests and too little to Ukraine's.
The Ukrainian president blasted a recent New York Times editorial and other similar statements by influential Western figures suggesting that Ukraine might have to sacrifice some territory to end the conflict.
"We must do everything in our power so that the world develops a firm habit to take Ukraine into consideration, so that the interests of Ukrainians don’t get overtaken by the interests of those rushing to yet another meeting with the dictator," Zelensky said.
'Clear blackmail'
Russia's February 24 invasion of its pro-Western neighbour has caused global shockwaves, with the latest being fears of food shortages, particularly in Africa.
Moscow blamed the international sanctions imposed after the invasion, while the West says the shortage is mainly down to Russia's blockade of Ukrainian ports.
"Solving the food problem requires a comprehensive approach, including the removal of sanctions that have been imposed on Russian exports and financial transactions," said Russian deputy foreign minister Andrey Rudenko.
But Kuleba urged the West not to give in.
"This is clear blackmail. You could not find a better example of blackmail in international relations," Kuleba said in Davos.
Kuleba also slammed the western military alliance NATO for "doing literally nothing" to stop Russia.
'Extremely heavy shelling'
Moscow's army has plotted a slow but steady course deeper into Ukraine's eastern Donbas region since withdrawing forces from central and northern regions.
In the eastern town of Soledar, Ukraine's salt manufacturing hub, the ground shook moments after Natalia Timofeyenko climbed out of her bunker.
"I go outside just to see people. I know that there is shelling out there but I go," the 47-year-old said after a thundering blast smashed apart a chunk of a salt mine where she worked with most of her friends and neighbours.
Ghostly frontline towns like Soledar are being hammered by Russian artillery as they sit along the crucial road that leads out of besieged Severodonetsk and its sister city Lysychansk.
Twelve people were killed by "extremely heavy shelling and attacks" in the neighbouring region of Donetsk, which also forms part of Donbas, the Ukrainian presidency said.
In a sign that the rest of the country remains at risk, Russian cruise missiles struck the major southern rail hub of Zaporizhzhia, killing one person and damaging dozens of houses, the presidency added.
'It is just war'
Russia also sought to tighten its grip over the parts of southern Ukraine that it occupies.
President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday signed a decree simplifying a procedure to obtain a Russian passport for residents of the southern Ukrainian regions of Kherson, under the full control of Russian troops, and partly-occupied Zaporizhzhia.
Kyiv said the plan was a "flagrant violation" of Ukraine's sovereignty.
Moscow-backed officials are pushing for formal annexation by Russia.
"People are very apprehensive," Kherson trolleybus driver Alexander Loginov, 47, told AFP from the cabin of his vehicle, during a press trip organised by the Russian defence ministry.
Day-to-day life remains marked by uncertainty, especially over payment of salaries as "Ukrainian banks are closing," he said. "To be honest, it is just war."
Underlining the human cost, about 200 bodies were found in the basement of a destroyed building of the port city of Mariupol, which fell to Moscow recently after a devastating siege, Ukrainian authorities said.
"It is impossible to be within the area due to the corpse smell," Ukrainian ombudswoman Lyudmyla Denisova wrote on Telegram Wednesday. "The occupiers turned the entire Mariupol into a cemetery." — with David Stout in Mykolaiv
President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday secured Turkey's crucial backing for Ukraine's NATO aspirations after winning a US pledge for cluster munitions that could inflict massive damage on Russian forces on the battlefield.
Washington's decision to deliver the controversial weapons — banned across a large part of the world but not in Russia or Ukraine — dramatically ups the stakes in the war, which entered its 500th day Saturday.
Zelensky has been travelling across Europe trying to secure bigger and better weapons for his outmatched army, which has launched a long-awaited counteroffensive that is progressing less swiftly than Ukraine's allies had hoped. — AFP
Washington's decision to supply Ukraine with ATACMS long-range missiles is "a grave mistake", Russian ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov says Wednesday.
"The White House's decision to send long-range missiles to Ukrainians is a grave mistake. The consequences of this step, which was deliberately hidden from the public, will be of the most serious nature," he says in a statement. — AFP
President Vladimir Putin says Sunday that Russian forces had made gains in their Ukraine offensive including in Avdiivka, a symbolic industrial hub.
"Our troops are improving their position in almost all of this area, which is quite vast," he says in an interview on Russian television, an extract of which was posted on social media on Sunday. "This concerns the areas of Kupiansk, Zaporizhia and Avdiivka." — AFP
The regional governor says debris from a drone destroyed over the Russian region of Belgorod, which borders Ukraine, fell on homes and killed three people, including a young child.
The air defense system "shot down an aircraft-type UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) approaching the city", says Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, adding that the falling debris destroyed several homes.
"Most importantly, three people were killed, one of them a small child," he writes on the Telegram messaging app, accompanied by pictures of a house reduced to a pile of rubble behind red and white police tape. — AFP
Ukraine's air force says on Tuesday that it had destroyed 27 of 36 Russian attack drones overnight in the south of the country.
Ukrainian forces downed 27 "Shahed-136/131" drones in the southern Kherson, Mykolaiv and Odesa regions, the air force said on the messaging platform Telegram.
In all, Moscow had launched 36 of the Iranian-made drones from the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014, it says. — AFP
The Kremlin claims on Friday Russian forces never targeted civilian infrastructure after Ukraine blamed Moscow for a missile attack that killed over 50 people in the eastern village of Groza.
"We repeat that the Russian military does not strike civilian targets. Strikes are carried out on military targets, on places where military personnel are concentrated," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says in his daily briefing. — AFP
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