KYIV: European Union (EU) leaders will gather in Brussels on Thursday to formally discuss calls for grants to war-torn people Ukraine “Candidate position” to join the bloc, as Russian forces slowly advance into the eastern Donbass region, despite fierce resistance. Kyivof army.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was conducting a “telephone marathon” on his country’s behalf for the meeting, making his case for Wednesday alone to 11 European leaders.
“We are preparing for the historic decision of the European Council. There are only a few hours left,” he said in his daily address.
But while the European Commission-backed candidacy is expected to be widely accepted, some members are lukewarm about Ukraine’s position, and any accession process is likely to take years, if not decades.
On the ground in eastern Ukraine’s Donbass, massive Russian bombing is making life “hell”, Kyiv said on Wednesday, while its troops will insist “as long as necessary”.
MoscowU.S. troops have been attacking the battlefield Lugansk region and the strategically important city of Severodonetsk for weeks and are moving slowly, despite fierce resistance from Ukrainian forces.
President Vladimir Putin’s army has tightened its grip on Severodonetsk, with its twin city of Lisichansk – located across the Donets River – now vulnerable to heavy bombardment.
Taking the two cities would give Moscow control of the whole of Lugansk, allowing Russia To press forward in Donbass.
“The Russian army is … just destroying everything”, Sergei Gede, governor of the Lugansk region, which includes both cities, wrote on Telegram.
After four months of shelling in Severodnetsk, he later wrote, “it’s just hell.”
“Our boys have held their positions and will continue to hold their positions as long as necessary,” he said.
Pro-Russian separatists claimed that they were in close proximity to both Lysychansk and Severodonetsk.
“Over the past several days, a great deal of work has been accomplished,” Andrei Marochko, an officer in Lugansk’s separatist army, told Russian state television.
– ‘Only Grandma Left’ – After the February invasion pushed back from Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine, Moscow is trying to seize a vast eastern region of the country.
But the daily bombing continues elsewhere.
AFP correspondents said the northeastern city of Kharkiv near the Russian border was empty on Wednesday, a day after a shelling by Moscow’s military killed five people there.
Leyla Shoydry, a young woman who lives in a park near the Opera House, said the situation was “very bad”.
“Last night while I was sleeping, the building next to me was hit by a bombing,” she said.
Roman Pohulia, 19, in a pink sweatshirt, said most of the residents had fled the city.
“Only Grandma is left,” he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky again on Wednesday pressed for a faster supply of weapons from Western allies, first accusing Russian forces of “brutal and cynical” shelling in the eastern Kharkiv region, where the governor said 15 people a day were killed.
As Ukraine awaits delivery of the advanced rocket system, a new report from the Institute for the Study of War suggests that the use of drones, a key factor in early success against the Russian military, could undermine Moscow’s air-defense capabilities. is increasingly hindered by improvement.
In the central city of Zaporizhzhya, meanwhile, women were training to use Kalashnikov assault rifles in urban warfare as Russian forces drew near.
“When you can do something, it’s not so scary to take a machine gun in your hands,” said 29-year-old Ulyana Kiyashko after walking through an improvised battlefield in a basement.
Separately, Iulia Tserkovnikova, a lawyer for captured British fighter Sean Piner, told Russia’s TASS news agency that she and her staff are preparing an appeal for his recent death sentence.
Pinner, along with fellow British nationals Aiden Aslin and Moroccan Brahim Saadoun, were sentenced to death by pro-Moscow separatists in the Donetsk People’s Republic earlier this month.
All three were accused of being mercenaries, a description Russia has broadly applied to foreign volunteers fighting for Kyiv.
Away from the battlefield, a senior US official in Washington said Joe Biden And another group of seven leaders, holding a summit later this week in Germany, will announce new measures to punish Russia for the invasion.
Moscow this week summoned the Brussels ambassador to a dispute with EU member Lithuania over the country’s ban on rail traffic at the Russian outpost of Kaliningrad.
The territory, annexed to Germany after World War II, is about 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from Moscow, bordering Lithuania and Poland.
By withholding goods coming from Russia, Lithuania says it is only complying with EU-wide sanctions on Moscow.
The United States made clear its commitment to Lithuania as a NATO ally, while Germany urged Russia not to “violate international law” by retaliating.
On Wednesday, a Turkish cargo ship left the Russian-held city of Mariupol on Ukraine’s Sea of Azov coast.
Moscow and Ankara have held talks for weeks on getting millions of tons of much-needed grain out of the war zone and into Africa and the Middle East.
But it was not immediately clear whether Azov was carrying Concorde wheat.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was conducting a “telephone marathon” on his country’s behalf for the meeting, making his case for Wednesday alone to 11 European leaders.
“We are preparing for the historic decision of the European Council. There are only a few hours left,” he said in his daily address.
But while the European Commission-backed candidacy is expected to be widely accepted, some members are lukewarm about Ukraine’s position, and any accession process is likely to take years, if not decades.
On the ground in eastern Ukraine’s Donbass, massive Russian bombing is making life “hell”, Kyiv said on Wednesday, while its troops will insist “as long as necessary”.
MoscowU.S. troops have been attacking the battlefield Lugansk region and the strategically important city of Severodonetsk for weeks and are moving slowly, despite fierce resistance from Ukrainian forces.
President Vladimir Putin’s army has tightened its grip on Severodonetsk, with its twin city of Lisichansk – located across the Donets River – now vulnerable to heavy bombardment.
Taking the two cities would give Moscow control of the whole of Lugansk, allowing Russia To press forward in Donbass.
“The Russian army is … just destroying everything”, Sergei Gede, governor of the Lugansk region, which includes both cities, wrote on Telegram.
After four months of shelling in Severodnetsk, he later wrote, “it’s just hell.”
“Our boys have held their positions and will continue to hold their positions as long as necessary,” he said.
Pro-Russian separatists claimed that they were in close proximity to both Lysychansk and Severodonetsk.
“Over the past several days, a great deal of work has been accomplished,” Andrei Marochko, an officer in Lugansk’s separatist army, told Russian state television.
– ‘Only Grandma Left’ – After the February invasion pushed back from Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine, Moscow is trying to seize a vast eastern region of the country.
But the daily bombing continues elsewhere.
AFP correspondents said the northeastern city of Kharkiv near the Russian border was empty on Wednesday, a day after a shelling by Moscow’s military killed five people there.
Leyla Shoydry, a young woman who lives in a park near the Opera House, said the situation was “very bad”.
“Last night while I was sleeping, the building next to me was hit by a bombing,” she said.
Roman Pohulia, 19, in a pink sweatshirt, said most of the residents had fled the city.
“Only Grandma is left,” he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky again on Wednesday pressed for a faster supply of weapons from Western allies, first accusing Russian forces of “brutal and cynical” shelling in the eastern Kharkiv region, where the governor said 15 people a day were killed.
As Ukraine awaits delivery of the advanced rocket system, a new report from the Institute for the Study of War suggests that the use of drones, a key factor in early success against the Russian military, could undermine Moscow’s air-defense capabilities. is increasingly hindered by improvement.
In the central city of Zaporizhzhya, meanwhile, women were training to use Kalashnikov assault rifles in urban warfare as Russian forces drew near.
“When you can do something, it’s not so scary to take a machine gun in your hands,” said 29-year-old Ulyana Kiyashko after walking through an improvised battlefield in a basement.
Separately, Iulia Tserkovnikova, a lawyer for captured British fighter Sean Piner, told Russia’s TASS news agency that she and her staff are preparing an appeal for his recent death sentence.
Pinner, along with fellow British nationals Aiden Aslin and Moroccan Brahim Saadoun, were sentenced to death by pro-Moscow separatists in the Donetsk People’s Republic earlier this month.
All three were accused of being mercenaries, a description Russia has broadly applied to foreign volunteers fighting for Kyiv.
Away from the battlefield, a senior US official in Washington said Joe Biden And another group of seven leaders, holding a summit later this week in Germany, will announce new measures to punish Russia for the invasion.
Moscow this week summoned the Brussels ambassador to a dispute with EU member Lithuania over the country’s ban on rail traffic at the Russian outpost of Kaliningrad.
The territory, annexed to Germany after World War II, is about 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from Moscow, bordering Lithuania and Poland.
By withholding goods coming from Russia, Lithuania says it is only complying with EU-wide sanctions on Moscow.
The United States made clear its commitment to Lithuania as a NATO ally, while Germany urged Russia not to “violate international law” by retaliating.
On Wednesday, a Turkish cargo ship left the Russian-held city of Mariupol on Ukraine’s Sea of Azov coast.
Moscow and Ankara have held talks for weeks on getting millions of tons of much-needed grain out of the war zone and into Africa and the Middle East.
But it was not immediately clear whether Azov was carrying Concorde wheat.