Ukraine says regained ground from Russia in key eastern city
KYIV, Ukraine — With a see-saw battle for control of the strategically important city of Severodonetsk raging on, a senior Ukrainian official said Sunday that his country's forces now control "half of the city".
The gains, announced by regional governor Sergiy Gaiday, would represent a significant advance by Ukrainian troops, who earlier had appeared on the verge of being driven out of the large eastern city.
As heavy fighting continued in the east, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Sunday that Moscow will hit new targets if the West supplies Ukraine with long-range missiles.
His comment came hours after several explosions rocked Kyiv, the first attack on the Ukrainian capital in weeks, and they followed a recent US promise to supply Ukraine with more potent missile systems.
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 been making slow but steady advances after being beaten back from other parts of the country, including Kyiv.
'Horror show'
Severodonetsk — the largest city still in Ukrainian hands in the Lugansk region of the Donbas region -- has been a focal point in recent weeks.
Russia's army had claimed Saturday some Ukrainian military units were withdrawing from Severodonetsk, but mayor Oleksandr Striuk said Ukrainian forces were fighting to retake the city.
On Telegram Sunday, Gaiday said: "The Russians were in control of about 70 percent of the city, but have been forced back over the past two days.
"They are afraid to move freely around the city."
Gaiday warned, however, that a major new Russian push on Severodonetsk appeared imminent.
He said Russian forces had been tasked with gaining control of the city by Friday, as well as a key transport artery nearby.
"We expect in the near future that all the reserves that they now have access to... they will throw to perform these two tasks," Gaiday said, predicting "a large increase" in shelling by the Russian side.
Across a river in the neighbouring city of Lysychansk, 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.
On Sunday, the press service of the Ukrainian president's office reported nine civilians killed in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions from shelling.
'They are bombing everything'
Ukraine has asked supporting countries for ever more powerful arms to fend off the Russian attack, and its deputy defence minister stressed Sunday this support was needed until Moscow was defeated.
"We have already entered into a protracted war and we will need constant support," Ganna Malyar told local media.
"The West must understand that its help cannot be a one-time thing, but something that continues until our victory."
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 for the pro-Western country.
But Putin said long-range missile supplies being sent to Ukraine meant that "we will draw the appropriate conclusions and use our arms... to strike targets we haven't hit before".
He did not specify which targets he meant, but earlier on Sunday Ukrainian officials said Russian missiles hit railway infrastructure sites in the first such strikes on Kyiv since April 28.
Russia said the strikes had destroyed tanks supplied to Ukraine by eastern European countries.
"High-precision, long-range missiles fired by the Russian Aerospace Forces on the outskirts of Kyiv destroyed T-72 tanks supplied by eastern European countries and other armoured vehicles that were in hangars," Russian defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.
One person was wounded, and AFP reporters saw several buildings with blown-out windows near one of the sites that was targeted.
Leonid, a 63-year-old resident who used to work at the facility, said he heard three or four explosions.
"There is nothing military there but they are bombing everything," he said.
Vasyl, 43, said he heard five blasts.
"People are afraid now," he said, walking back to his damaged home with two loaves of bread.
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 or not.
Speaking from the apostolic palace in St Peter's Square, Pope Francis on Sunday renewed calls for "real negotiations" to end what he called the "increasingly dangerous escalation" of the war.
Football defeat
Apart from the human toll, the conflict has caused widespread damage to Ukraine's cultural heritage.
On Saturday, Ukrainian officials reported a large Orthodox wooden monastery, a popular pilgrimage site, had burnt down and blamed Russian shelling.
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.
The United Nations said it was leading intense negotiations with Russia to allow Ukraine's grain harvest to leave the country.
Away from the battlefield, Wales dashed Ukraine's dreams of reaching its first football World Cup since 2006 with a 1-0 victory.
Before the game in Cardiff City Stadium Sunday, the Ukrainian national anthem was applauded by all sides. — with Quentin TYBERGHIEN in the Donbas
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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