WRAPUP 6 – Ukraine launches a counter-offensive in the east of the country


Ukrainian forces have launched a counter-offensive near the Russian-held town of Izium in eastern Ukraine, a regional governor said on Saturday, in what could prove a serious setback for the Moscow’s plans to capture the entire Donbas region.

Russian forces concentrated much of their firepower on the Donbas in a “second phase” of their invasion announced on April 19, after failing to reach the capital kyiv from the north in the first weeks of the war.

But Ukraine has taken back territory in its northeast, driving the Russians away from Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv. Maintaining pressure on Izium and Russian supply lines will make it harder for Moscow to surround hardened Ukrainian troops on the eastern front in the Donbas.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy also said complex talks were under way to find a way to evacuate a large number of wounded soldiers from a besieged steelworks in the port of Mariupol in exchange for the release of Russian prisoners of war.

Mariupol, which has seen the heaviest fighting in nearly three months of war, is now in Russian hands, but hundreds of Ukrainian defenders still hold out in the steel mill Azovstal despite weeks of heavy Russian bombardment.

According to Western military analysts, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his generals did not anticipate such fierce Ukrainian resistance when they launched the invasion on February 24.

In addition to having lost a large number of men and a lot of military equipment, Russia is suffering the consequences of economic sanctions. The Group of Seven Major Western Economies pledged in a statement on Saturday to “further increase economic and political pressure on Russia” and supply more arms to Ukraine.

Commenting on the latest developments in eastern Ukraine, regional governor Oleh Sinegubov said in comments broadcast on social media: “The hottest point remains the management of Izium.”

“Our armed forces have gone on a counter-offensive there. The enemy is retreating on some fronts and that is the result of the character of our armed forces,” he said.

DIPLOMATIC SHOCKS

The invasion of Moscow, which she describes as a “special operation” to disarm Ukraine and protect it from the fascists, has shaken European security. Ukraine and its Western allies claim that the claim of fascism is a false pretext for an unprovoked war of aggression.

The war prompted Finland and most likely Sweden to abandon their long-cherished military neutrality and seek membership in NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization).

Finnish President Sauli Niinisto told Putin in a phone call that his country, which shares a 1,300 km border with Russia, wanted to join NATO to enhance its own security. Niinisto’s office described the conversation as “direct and frank”.

Putin told Niinisto it would be a mistake for Helsinki to abandon its neutrality, the Kremlin said, adding that the move could damage bilateral relations.

One of the objectives of Russia’s action in Ukraine was to prevent the former Soviet republic from joining the NATO alliance.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who spoke to Mr Putin by phone on Friday, said he saw no signs of a change in the Russian leader’s thinking on the conflict.

In an interview for the t-online news site published on Saturday, Scholz also said that Western sanctions against Russia would remain in place until it reaches an agreement with Ukraine, adding: “Our goal is that this invasion fails”.

Meeting in Germany, the foreign ministers of the G7, the group of rich nations, have backed the idea of ​​giving Ukraine more aid and arms.

In their statement, the G7 ministers – from the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada – also pledged to “accelerate our efforts to reduce and end dependence on Russian energy supplies.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday that Western sanctions amounted to a “total hybrid war” against Moscow and that it was difficult to predict how long it might last.

I LOVED THIS PLACE

As Russian and Ukrainian forces engaged in artillery duels near their common border north of Kharkiv on Saturday, Vera Kosolapenko, 67, cried as she stood in the still-smoldering ruins of her small home, hit by a Russian missile friday.

“I don’t know how I’m going to rebuild this house,” she said as explosions echoed above her leafy village of Bezruky.

“I liked this place.”

In a speech delivered late in the night, the Ukrainian Zelenskiy addressed the fate of the people trapped on the Azovstal site.

“At the moment, very complex negotiations are underway on the next phase of the evacuation mission: the withdrawal of the seriously injured, of the doctors,” he said, adding that influential international intermediaries were taking part in the talks.

Russia, which initially insisted that the defenders of the sprawling Soviet-era bunkers under the steel mill surrender, has said little publicly about the talks.

In its latest bulletin, the Russian Defense Ministry said that its forces struck Ukrainian command posts, ammunition depots and other military equipment in several regions, including Donbas, killing at least 100 Ukrainian “nationalists”. .

Reuters could not independently verify this report.

Moscow has imposed a military-civilian administration in the Kherson region of southern Ukraine and plans to hold a referendum there on whether or not to join the Russian Federation, mirroring similar votes held in the adjacent Crime Peninsula in 2014 and in two regions of Donbas.

Russia would almost certainly manipulate the results of such a vote, the British defense minister said.

In a grim illustration of the war’s toll on Russia’s own forces, Reuters footage on Friday showed the bodies of Russian soldiers being brought to a marshalling yard outside kyiv and piled with hundreds of others onto a refrigerated train , pending the time when they can be sent back to their families.

“Most of them were brought from the Kyiv region, there are a few from the Chernihiv region and other regions as well,” Volodymyr Lyamzin, the civil-military liaison officer, told Reuters. in chief, while stretcher-bearers in white protective suits lifted body bags into the covered wagons.



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