Russia will deliver “in the coming months” to Belarus missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, Vladimir Putin announced on Saturday when he received Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, in the midst of tensions between their countries and the West around Ukraine.
“In the coming months, we will transfer Iskander-M tactical missile systems to Belarus, which can use ballistic or cruise missiles, in their conventional and nuclear versions,” Vladimir Putin said at the start of his interview with Alexander Lukashenko. in St. Petersburg broadcast by Russian television.
Putin and Lukashenko want to make aviation capable of carrying nuclear weapons
Russian President Vladimir Putin offered Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko on Saturday to help him upgrade his warplanes to make them capable of carrying nuclear weapons, amid tensions with the West around Ukraine.
“Many Su-25 (aircraft) are in service with the Belarusian army. They could be upgraded in an appropriate way. This modernization should be carried out in aircraft factories in Russia and training of personnel should begin in accordance with that,” Vladimir Putin said after being asked by Mr. Lukashenko to “adapt” his planes capable of carrying nuclear weapons, during an interview broadcast on television.
Shots from Belarus
Missiles were fired from Belarus, a diplomatic ally of Moscow, towards the Cherniguiv border region in Ukraine, northeast of kyiv, the Ukrainian army said on Saturday. “Around 5 a.m. (0200 GMT), the Chernigiv region came under massive missile bombardment. Twenty rockets targeted the village of Desna, fired from the territory of Belarus (and also) from the air,” it said. Facebook the Northern Command of Ukrainian troops, stating that “there were no casualties” at this stage. “An infrastructure was affected,” said the Ukrainian army, without indicating whether it was military or not. Desna, a small village of 7,500 inhabitants before the war, is located 70 km north of kyiv and the same distance south of the border with Belarus.
Severodonetsk is “fully occupied” by the Russian army
The city of Severodonetsk in Donbass (east), the scene of fierce fighting between the Ukrainian and Russian armies for several weeks, is “fully occupied” by the Russian army, its mayor Oleksandre Striouk announced on Saturday. “The city is completely occupied by the Russians,” he declared on Ukrainian television at the end of the afternoon. The Ukrainian army announced on Friday its withdrawal from this town of around 100,000 inhabitants before the war to better defend the neighboring town of Lyssytchansk.
Will the Russians continue the opposition?
For General Jérôme Pellistrandi, a specialist in international relations: “Sievierodonetsk had a symbolic side, it was useless for the Ukrainians to continue to lose soldiers for a battle which would have been lost anyway. The conquest of Sievierodonetsk may allow Vladimir Putin to say that he was able to liberate the Lugansk region. It was a victory that cost them extremely dearly. It took the soldiers more than a month to conquer 5 km of an industrial agglomeration. The question: Is Russian soldiers able to continue the opposition or do they need a tactical break?
Russian and Pro-Russian forces enter Lysychansk
Russian and pro-Russian forces entered Lysytchansk on Saturday and “street fighting” is now taking place in this neighboring town of Sieverodonetsk, a strategic lock in eastern Ukraine in the process of being taken by Moscow, separatists said . “People’s militia of the Lugansk People’s Republic and the Russian army have entered the city of Lysychansk,” a representative of the pro-Russian separatists, Lieutenant Colonel Andrei Marochko, said on Telegram.
The role of Belarus
The strike comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko are due to meet in St. Petersburg, Russia on Saturday ahead of a visit to Belarus, scheduled for Thursday and Friday, by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Although not belligerent in the conflict with Ukraine at this stage, Belarus served as logistical support for Moscow’s troops, especially in the first weeks of the Russian offensive. The country, led by Lukashenko since 1994, has since been widely targeted by Western sanctions also taken against Russia.
“The Parity of Fire”
Ukraine is urging its allies to finally give it “fire parity” with Russian forces to “stabilize” the situation in the Donbass after the withdrawal of its troops from Sieverodonetsk, a strategic lock in this region, pounded for weeks by the Russian artillery.
“I stressed the need to achieve fire parity with the enemy, which will allow us to stabilize the situation in the most threatened region of Lugansk,” said Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valeriy Zaluzhnyi , reporting on his Facebook page on a telephone conversation with his American counterpart, General Mark Milley.
Ukraine continues to demand more heavy weapons from its allies to counter Russian strike power, particularly in the Donbass, an industrial region in the east of the country, already partially under the control of pro-Russian separatists since 2014, and that Moscow has sworn to conquer completely.
“Slow War”
But for all that, “the overall vision – a slow war of entrenched positions – has hardly changed”, assures AFP Ivan Klyszcz, researcher at the Estonian University of Tartu. “The withdrawal was probably planned before and can be considered tactical,” he said, pointing out that Ukrainian resistance allowed kyiv to consolidate its rear.
The Ukrainian forces “are in the process of operating a professional and tactical withdrawal in order to consolidate positions that they will be better able to defend”, also judged an American official at the Pentagon, on condition of anonymity.
kyiv is now expecting new offensives on the city of Lyssytchansk, neighboring Sieverodonetsk, almost surrounded by Russian forces, which are eating away at a little more territory every day. Mykolaivka, a town about twenty kilometers south-west of Lyssytchansk, is in the hands of the Russian army, said Serguiï Gaïdaï adding that the Russians were now trying to “conquer Guirské”, a neighboring town.
“Hot Summer”
On Thursday, kyiv announced the arrival of the first four US Himars rocket launchers, powerful weapons eagerly awaited on the ground. “Summer will be hot for the Russian occupiers”, has already predicted the Ukrainian government.
The American army had however warned, by announcing the dispatch of these heavy weapons at the beginning of June, that it first wanted the Ukrainian soldiers to master this precision artillery before sending them more. Military experts point out that the range of the Himars is slightly greater than that of similar Russian systems, which would allow Ukrainian forces to strike enemy artillery from out of reach.
In recent weeks, Ukrainian forces have returned to the offensive in the south in an attempt to retake territories lost since the February 24 invasion. And the attacks targeting occupation officials, several of whom were injured, multiplied in parallel in the region of Kherson and the neighboring region of Zaporijjia.
Kharkiv still bombed
Russia has also intensified its offensive for several days on the large city of Kharkiv, in the northeast, where explosions were heard overnight from Friday to Saturday. Thursday in Brussels, the 27 countries of the European Union had endorsed Ukraine’s candidacy, a highly symbolic step after four months of Russian invasion.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rejoiced again on Friday. “Let us at least rejoice a little. Small and quiet, quietly, but rejoice,” he said in his daily evening video message.
On the diplomatic front, Germany on Friday accused Russia of taking “the whole world hostage” by using hunger “as a weapon of war”, during a conference in Berlin aimed at finding “solutions”. to the food crisis caused by the war in Ukraine.
And from Sunday, in Germany, the G7 meets at a summit to discuss, among other things, support for Ukraine, before another summit, that of NATO, for two days from Tuesday in Madrid.