- Ukraine excludes ceasefire, discounts
- Russia launches attack on Luhansk
- Russia is halting gas flows from Finland over a payment dispute
- The Polish president in Ukraine will address parliament on Sunday
May 22 (Reuters) – Ukraine ruled out a ceasefire or concessions to Moscow as Russia stepped up its offensive in the eastern Donbass region and stopped supplying gas to Finland as Polish President Andrzej Duda prepared to address Ukraine’s parliament on Sunday.
After weeks of resistance from the last Ukrainian fighters in the strategic southeastern city of Mariupol, Russia is launching a major offensive in Luhansk, one of Donbass’s two provinces.
Russian-backed separatists already controlled parts of Luhansk and the neighboring Donetsk province before the February 24 invasion, but Moscow wants to seize the last remaining Ukrainian-controlled territory in Donbas.
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“The situation in Donbass is extremely difficult,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his evening address. The Russian army was trying to attack the cities of Slavyansk and Severodonetsk, but Ukrainian forces delayed the offensive, he said.
Zelensky’s adviser Mikhail Podoliak rejected his agreement to a ceasefire and said Kyiv would not accept any deal with Moscow, which would include ceding territory. Making concessions would have the opposite effect on Ukraine, because Russia would retaliate more strongly after the cessation of hostilities, he said. Read more
“The war will not stop (after concessions). It will simply be paused for a while,” Podoliak, Ukraine’s chief negotiator, told Reuters in a heavily guarded presidential office. “A new offensive will be launched, even more bloody and large-scale.
The latest calls for an immediate ceasefire came from US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi. Read more
The end of the fighting in Mariupol, Russia’s largest city, has given Russian President Vladimir Putin a rare victory after a series of setbacks in nearly three months of fighting.
The last Ukrainian forces held back the huge steel production of Mariupol Azovstal surrendered on Friday, Russia said. Read more
Full control of Mariupol gives Russia command of a land route connecting the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow took over in 2014, with mainland Russia and areas of eastern Ukraine held by pro-Russian separatists.
Ukrainian forces in the separatist-controlled areas of Luhansk and Donetsk said on Saturday they had repulsed nine attacks and destroyed five tanks and 10 other armored vehicles in the previous 24 hours.
Russian forces have used planes, artillery, tanks, missiles, mortars and missiles across the front line to attack civilian structures and residential areas, Ukrainians said in a Facebook post. At least seven people have been killed in the Donetsk region, they said.
Russian troops have destroyed a bridge on the Seversky Donets River between Severodonetsk and Lisichansk, Luhansk Oblast Governor Sergei Gaidai said. On the outskirts of Severodonetsk, there was fighting from morning to night, he told the Telegram news app.
Severodonetsk and its twin Lisichansk beyond the Seversky Donets River form the eastern part of the Ukrainian pocket, which Russia has been trying to seize since mid-April after failing to seize Kyiv.
GAS DISPUTE
Russia’s state gas company Gazprom (GAZP.MM) has said it has stopped exporting gas to Finland, which has rejected Moscow’s demands to pay in rubles for Russian gas after Western countries imposed sanctions over the invasion. Read more
Finland and Sweden applied this week to join NATO’s military alliance. Read more
Finnish state-owned gas wholesaler Gasum, the Finnish government and individual companies that consume gas in Finland have said they are ready to stop Russian flows.
Most European supply contracts are denominated in euros or dollars. Last month, Moscow cut off gas to Bulgaria and Poland after they refused to comply with the new conditions.
Western countries have also stepped up arms supplies to Ukraine. Kyiv received another huge boost on Saturday when US President Joe Biden signed a bill to provide nearly $ 40 billion in military, economic and humanitarian aid. Read more
Moscow says Western sanctions, along with arms supplies to Kyiv, are a “proxy war” on the part of the United States and its allies. Thousands of people in Ukraine were killed in the war, which displaced millions and destroyed cities.
Zelensky said he stressed the importance of more sanctions against Russia and the unblocking of Ukrainian ports in talks with Draghi on Saturday.
Duda, who also met with Zelensky in Kyiv last month, was the first head of state to address parliament in person since the invasion, his office said.
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Report by Natalia Zinets, Max Hunder, Tom Balmfort in Kyiv, David Ljunggren in Ottawa, Lydia Kelly in Melbourne and the Reuters bureaus, Writing by Madeleine Chambers, Richard Pullin and Doina Chiaku; Edited by Nick Zieminski and Gary Doyle
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