Image: Reuters Berita 24 English - In the eastern frontline city of Sievierodonetsk, Ukrainian forces struggled to hold their ground during ...
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| Image: Reuters |
Berita 24 English - In the eastern frontline city of Sievierodonetsk, Ukrainian forces struggled to hold their ground during bloody street-to-street fighting. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the situation was tough and promised to take back Russia's gains.
The battle for the industrial city, which has been going on for days, has become very important. Russia is focusing its offensive power on the city in the hopes of reaching one of its stated goals, which is to fully take control of the surrounding Luhansk province on behalf of Russian-speaking separatists.
Zelenskiy said by video link at an event hosted by the Financial Times newspaper in Britain on Tuesday, "We need to get all of our land back."
When asked about French President Emmanuel Macron's comments that it was important not to "humiliate" Moscow, which Ukraine took to mean that some of their demands must be met, Zelenskiy said, "We're not going to humiliate anyone. We'll respond in kind."
Serhiy Gaidai, the governor of the Luhansk region, said that it was hard for the defenders in the center of Sievierodonetsk to stop Russian attacks.
Zelenskiy said late on Tuesday that Sievierodonetsk, Lysychansk, and Popasna are still the most dangerous places.
Moscow said that its troops were moving forward, while Zelenskiy said that Donbas was still putting up a "heroic defense." Reuters could not check the situation on the ground on its own.
Since they were forced out of Kyiv and Kharkiv, Russia has been focusing on the Donbas, which is made up of the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces and is closest to the Russian border.
Moscow says it is in the middle of a "special military operation" to disarm and "denazify" its neighbor.
Ukraine and its allies say that this is just an excuse for a war that has killed thousands, destroyed cities, and forced millions of people to leave their homes. Zelenskiy said that the Ukraine would release a "Book of Executioners" about war crimes next week.
"These are real facts about real people who have done real cruel things to real Ukrainians," he said.
Russia says it has done everything it can to keep its operation in Ukraine from hurting civilians.
BOMBARDMENT
Maxar Technologies' satellite pictures from Monday showed that there was a lot of damage in Sievierodonetsk and nearby Rubizhne.
In a press release, the U.S. company said, "Russian multiple rocket launchers, self-propelled and towed artillery are set up in the northeast and are aimed at the cities."
Officials from Ukraine said that their troops surprised the Russians with an attack last week and drove them out of part of the city center.
Before that, it looked like Russia was about to surround the Ukrainian garrison in Luhansk and cut off the main road to Sievierodonetsk and its twin city Lysychansk.
Kharkiv, the second largest city in Ukraine, was also shelled on Tuesday. The mayor of the city said that one person was killed. In the past few weeks, the city in the northeast had been quieter.
Viacheslav Shulga, who works at a hit pizzeria in the north of Kharkiv said that people had hoped the restaurant would open soon.
"Everything has been lost. We're taking out the equipment, and there won't be any business here for the time being "he said.
A Russian law enforcement source told the Tass news agency that more than 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers who surrendered in the southern city of Mariupol have been sent to Russia to be investigated. This is more than two weeks after the siege of Mariupol ended.
GLOBAL CRISIS
As the war's effects spread around the world, the U.S. added more sanctions against Moscow by making it illegal for U.S. money managers to buy Russian debt or stocks on secondary markets.
As Ukraine and other countries deal with the damage to its economy, the World Bank gave Ukraine an extra $1.49 billion to help pay the salaries of government and social workers.
Ukraine is one of the biggest grain exporters in the world, and the West says that Russia is putting the world at risk of famine by closing Ukraine's Black Sea ports.
The governor of the area that includes the port of Mykolaiv said that warehouses in one of Ukraine's largest agricultural goods terminals were destroyed by shelling over the weekend.
Moscow blames Western sanctions for the global food crisis, which it says is not its fault.
Sergei Shoigu, the defense minister of Russia, said that the Ukrainian ports of Berdyansk and Mariupol, which Russia controls, were ready to start shipping grain again. Ukraine says that sending these kinds of shipments from land that Moscow has taken over would be stealing.
