Situation on the ground, international reactions, sanctions: the point of this Saturday, June 18, 2022 on the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
The war in Ukraine could last “for years”, warned the Secretary General of NATO in an interview published on Sunday by the German daily Bild, urging Western countries to register their support for kyiv over time.
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“We have to be prepared for this to last for years”, said Jens Stoltenberg, “we must not waver in supporting Ukraine, even if the costs are high, not only in terms of military support but also because of rising energy and food prices”.
These costs are nothing compared to that paid daily by the Ukrainians at the front, judged the head of the Atlantic Alliance. In addition, if Russian President Vladimir Putin were to achieve his goals in Ukraine, such as when he annexed Crimea in 2014, “then we would have to pay an even greater price,” Stoltenberg said.
In this context, he urged the countries of the alliance to continue their arms deliveries to kyiv. “With additional modern weapons, the likelihood of Ukraine being able to repel (Vladimir) Putin’s troops from Donbass would increase,” he said.
This region of eastern Ukraine is now partly under the control of Russian soldiers.
Russian attacks repelled
The Ukrainian army said on Sunday that it repelled Russian attacks near Severodonetsk, in the east of the country, the scene of bloody fighting in a war that could last “years” according to NATO. “Our units repelled the assault in the Toshkivka area,” the Ukrainian military said on Facebook. “The enemy has retreated and is regrouping.”
The local governor, Sergei Gaïdaï, described as “lies” the idea according to which the Russians controlled the strategic locality of Severodonetsk. “Indeed they control the majority of the city but they don’t control it entirely,” he said on Telegram.
In kyiv, thousands of people gathered on Saturday to pay tribute to Roman Ratushny, 24, a figure of the pro-European Maidan movement in Ukraine, killed fighting the Russians in the east of the country.
In front of his coffin draped in a yellow and blue Ukrainian flag at the foot of a monument overlooking the sprawling Independence Square in the capital, people of all ages saluted his memory. “I think it’s important to be here because he’s a hero of Ukraine and we have to remember him,” 17-year-old high school student Dmytro Ostrovsky told AFP.
This loss puts a human face on the grief shared by Ukrainians, as the bloodshed continues in the country.
Fierce fighting is raging in particular near Severodonetsk, in the Donbass region (east), partially controlled by pro-Russian separatists since 2014 and which Russia, after failing to take kyiv in the first weeks of its offensive, has set itself aim to take full control.
“An expression says: you have to prepare for the worst and the best will come by itself”, said Saturday in an interview with AFP Serguiï Gaïdaï, governor of the Lugansk region, which is home to the cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk in particular. .
“Of course we have to prepare,” added the man who repeatedly warned that the Russians would end up surrounding Lyssytchansk by cutting off its main supply routes. In Lyssytchansk “the situation is difficult, in the city and in the whole region”, underlined Serguiï Gaïdaï because the Russians “bomb our positions 24 hours a day”. Mr Gaïdaï added that seeing his hometown of Severodonetsk being bombed and people he knows dying is “painful”.
“I’m a human being but I bury that deep inside of me,” he said, adding that his task was “to help people as much as possible.”