Ukraine president expects Russia assaults to accentuate with EU summit this week

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy predicted Russia will escalate its assaults this week as European Union leaders think about whether or not to again his nation’s bid to hitch the bloc and Russia presses its marketing campaign to win management of east Ukraine. “Obviously, this week we should expect from Russia an intensification of its hostile activities,” Zelenskiy stated in a Sunday nightly video handle. “We are preparing. We are ready.” 

Ukraine utilized to hitch the EU 4 days after Russian troops poured throughout its border in February. The EU’s government, the European Commission, on Friday beneficial that Ukraine obtain candidate standing. Leaders of the 27-nation union will think about the query at a summit on Thursday and Friday and are anticipated to endorse Ukraine’s utility regardless of misgivings from some member states. The course of might take a few years to finish. 

The EU’s embrace of Ukraine would intervene with one in all Russian President Vladimir Putin’s said objectives when he ordered his troops into Ukraine: to maintain Moscow’s southern neighbor outdoors of the West’s sphere of affect. Putin on Friday stated Moscow had “nothing against” Ukraine’s EU membership, however a Kremlin spokesperson stated Russia was carefully following Kyiv’s bid particularly in gentle of elevated protection cooperation amongst EU members. 

On the battlefield, Russian forces are attempting to take full management of the jap Donbas area, components of which had been already held by Russian-backed separatists earlier than the Feb. 24 invasion. A major goal of Moscow’s jap assault is the economic metropolis of Sievierodonetsk. Russia stated on Sunday it had seized Metyolkine, a village on the outskirts, and Russian state information company TASS reported that many Ukrainian fighters had surrendered there. Ukraine’s army stated Russia had “partial success” within the space. 

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Luhansk Governor Serhiy Gaidai informed Ukrainian TV {that a} Russian assault on Toshkivka, 35 km (20 miles) south of Sievierodonetsk, additionally “had a degree of success”. In Sievierodonetsk itself, a metropolis of 100,000 earlier than the warfare, Gaidai stated Russia managed “the main part” however not your entire city after intense combating. Reuters couldn’t independently verify the battlefield accounts. 

Both Russia and Ukraine have continued heavy bombardment round Sievierodonetsk “with little change to the front line”, Britain’s Ministry of Defense stated on Sunday. In Sievierodonetsk twin metropolis of Lysychansk, residential buildings and personal homes had been destroyed by Russian shelling, Gaidai stated. “People are dying on the streets and in bomb shelters,” he stated. 

‘War could last years’ 

Analysts on the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based assume tank, wrote in a observe that “Russian forces will likely be able to seize Sievierodonetsk in the coming weeks, but at the cost of concentrating most of their available forces in this small area”. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg stated the Ukraine warfare might final for years and urged Western governments to proceed sending state-of-the-art weaponry to Ukrainian troops, Germany’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper reported.

“We must prepare for the fact that it could take years. We must not let up in supporting Ukraine,” Stoltenberg was quoted as saying. Russia has stated it launched what it calls a “special military operation” to disarm its neighbor and defend Russian audio system there from harmful nationalists. Ukraine and its allies dismiss that as a baseless pretext for a warfare of aggression. 

In Ukraine’s second-largest metropolis, Kharkiv, northwest of Luhansk, Russia’s protection ministry stated its Iskander missiles had destroyed weaponry just lately provided by Western international locations. Russian forces had been making an attempt to strategy Kharkiv, which skilled intense shelling earlier within the warfare, and switch it right into a “front-line city”, a Ukrainian inside ministry official stated. 

In southern Ukraine, Western weaponry had helped Ukrainian forces advance 10 km (6 miles) in direction of Russian-occupied Melitopol, its mayor stated in a video posted on Telegram from outdoors the town. Australia’s protection ministry stated on Monday it has despatched the primary 4 of 14 promised armored personnel carriers to Ukraine, a part of a $200 million support pledge. 

“Australia stands with Ukraine, and again calls on Russia to cease its unprovoked, unjust and illegal invasion of Ukraine,” Defense Minister Richard Marles stated in an announcement. An EU resolution in favour of Kyiv’s final membership would put Ukraine on observe to comprehend an aspiration that might have been out of attain for the previous Soviet republic earlier than the Russian invasion. 

“Whole generations fought for a chance to escape from the prison of the Soviet Union and, like a free bird, to fly to European civilization,” the speaker of Ukraine’s parliament, Ruslan Stefanchuk, stated in an announcement.