As Ukraine prepares to fight for control of its industrial east, NATO foreign ministers concluded two-day meetings in Brussels with a promise to provide more support in the fight against Russia’s latest offensive.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance’s members were “determined to do more” to help Ukrainians “defend their homes and their country and repel invading forces”.
“We agreed that we need to further strengthen and maintain our support for Ukraine so that Ukraine can prevail in the face of the Russian invasion,” he said.
Authorities in Ukraine have told residents to leave the eastern region of Donbass while they still can, and called on Western nations to send more weapons on Thursday, a week after Russian forces withdrew from the devastated outskirts of Kyiv to regroup for an offensive in the east. part of the country.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, left, walks with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg as they arrive for a meeting of NATO foreign ministers at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Thursday. (Olivier Mathis / Associated Press)
The focus of Russia’s six-week invasion has failed to seize Ukraine’s capital quickly and achieve what Western countries say is President Vladimir Putin’s original goal of overthrowing the Ukrainian government. Russia’s focus now is on Donbass, a predominantly Russian-speaking region in eastern Ukraine.
In Brussels, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called on NATO to provide more weapons to his country to help prevent new atrocities such as those reported in the city of Bucha, northwest of Kyiv.
WATCH The war in Ukraine could last for months, even years, says the NATO leader:
The war in Ukraine could last months, even years, the NATO chief said
NATO allies are pushing for an immediate end to the war in Ukraine, said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, but are also preparing for the possibility of it continuing for years. 1:36
“My agenda is very simple. These are weapons, weapons and weapons,” Kuleba said when he arrived for talks with NATO foreign ministers.
“We know how to fight. We know how to win. But without the sustainable and sufficient supplies demanded by Ukraine, these victories will be accompanied by huge sacrifices,” Kuleba said on Wednesday. “The more weapons we get and the sooner they arrive in Ukraine, the more lives will be saved.”
The head of the UN humanitarian service, Martin Griffiths, in the center, was walking the streets of Bucha on Thursday during a three-hour visit to a city near Kyiv that included stopping the site of a mass grave Ukrainians dug near a church. (Ronaldo Shemid / AFP / Getty Images)
After the meetings, Kuleba called for help from the allies within days, not weeks, “or your help will come too late and many people will die.”
Kuleba said the discussion in NATO was not about the list of weapons that Ukraine will receive, but rather about the deadlines when they will be given, noting that he has no doubt that Ukraine will have the weapons needed to struggle.
A U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Russia had withdrawn all 24,000 or more troops from the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions to the north, sending them to Belarus or Russia for supplies and reorganization, presumably to return. beats to the east.
Ukraine calls on civilians in the east to evacuate
It is reported that the growing number of Putin’s troops, along with mercenaries, are moving to Donbass. “People will come under fire later,” said Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk, urging civilians to evacuate the predominantly Russian-speaking industrial region, “and there is nothing we can do to help them.”
People from Mariupol and the surrounding area of eastern Ukraine leave a train to be taken for a temporary stay in the Nizhny Novgorod region, at the railway station in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, on Thursday. (Associated Press)
She said that Ukraine and Russian representatives have agreed to create 10 routes for the evacuation of civilians from Donetsk, Lugansk and Zaporozhye region. She said residents would be able to seek safety in the cities of Zaporizhia in southeastern Ukraine and Bakhmut in the east.
Ukrainian forces have been fighting Russian-backed separatists in Donbas since 2014. Prior to the February 24 invasion, Moscow recognized the Luhansk and Donetsk districts as independent states.
WATCH Ukrainian authorities say the fighting in Donetsk and Luhansk is intensifying:
Ukrainian authorities say fighting in Donetsk and Luhansk is intensifying
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister has called for people to flee the eastern part of the country as fighting intensifies. In Brussels, Ukraine’s foreign minister called on NATO to provide more weapons to its war-torn country to help prevent further atrocities. 5:00 p.m.
Another Western official, who also wished to remain anonymous to discuss intelligence assessments, said it could take up to a month for battle-torn Russian forces to regroup for serious pressure on eastern Ukraine.
In a speech Wednesday, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky also warned that the Russian military was preparing for a new offensive in the east. He said Ukrainians fighting the offensive “will not back down”.
Air strikes in the east
Russian airstrikes are now focused mainly on areas of eastern Ukraine, and Russian forces are trying to encircle Ukrainian troops in the region, Ukrainian presidential adviser Alexei Arestovich said on Thursday.
He said the besieged southern city of Mariupol was holding back and that he believed Russian efforts to encircle Ukrainian troops to the east would be in vain. The takeover of Mariupol would allow Russia to provide a continuous land corridor to the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014.
People passed through debris and destroyed Russian military vehicles on a street on Wednesday in Bucha, Ukraine. The Ukrainian government has accused Russian forces of “deliberate massacres” while occupying and eventually withdrawing from Bucha, northwest of Kyiv. (Chris McGrath / Getty Images)
More than 100,000 people still need to be evacuated urgently from Mariupol, Mayor Vadim Boychenko said on Thursday, describing the situation in the port city as a humanitarian catastrophe.
“The remaining more than 100,000 people are praying for salvation – a full-scale evacuation is needed,” he said on national television.
Boychenko said of the more than 5,000 civilians killed in weeks of Russian bombing and street fighting, 210 were children. Russian forces have bombed hospitals, including one in which 50 people were burned to death, he said.
Boychenko said more than 90 percent of the city’s infrastructure has been destroyed. Attacks on the strategic city of the Sea of Azov cut off food, water, fuel and medicine and destroyed homes and businesses.
In areas north of the capital, Ukrainian authorities continued to gather evidence of Russian atrocities amid signs that Moscow troops had killed people indiscriminately before withdrawing.
Fragments of a Russian jet fighter can be seen at a private home in Chernihiv, Ukraine, on Wednesday. Russian troops withdrew from the areas around Kyiv and the northern cities of Chernihiv and Sumy after talks with Ukraine in Turkey last week. (Stas Yurchenko / Associated Press)
Ukrainian authorities say the bodies of at least 410 civilians have been found in cities around Kyiv, victims of what Zelensky described as a Russian campaign of murder, rape, dismemberment and torture. Some victims were apparently shot at close range. Some were found with their hands tied.
Vote for membership of the UN Human Rights Council
The Group of Seven (G7) issued a statement Thursday saying it “strongly condemns the atrocities committed by the Russian armed forces” in Bucha and other Ukrainian cities.
They said “now is the time” to suspend Russia’s membership in the UN Human Rights Council.
The United Nations General Assembly will vote on Thursday on the US demand for Russia’s removal from the Council over reports of “gross and systematic human rights violations and abuses” in Ukraine.
Cemetery officials are loading the bodies of civilians killed in Bucha into a truck to be transported to the morgue on Wednesday. (Rodrigo Abd / Associated Press)
Zelensky accused Russia on Wednesday of interfering in an international investigation into possible war crimes by removing corpses and trying to hide other evidence in Bucha, northwest of Kyiv.
“We have information that the Russian troops have changed their tactics and are trying to remove the dead people, the dead Ukrainians, from the streets and basements of the occupied territories,” he said in his latest video address. “It’s just an attempt to hide the evidence and nothing more.
WATCH Russia accused of covering up killings of civilians in Ukraine:
There are no signs of Russia’s withdrawal in the war in Ukraine, which is accused of covering up the massacre
WARNING: This video contains graphics NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has warned that Russia’s war in Ukraine could continue for some time, with no sign of President Vladimir Putin changing his ambitions. In Mariupol, officials accuse Russia of using mobile crematoria to cover up massacres of civilians. 2:31
He called on the Russians to demand an end to the war, “if you are even a little ashamed of what the Russian military is doing in Ukraine.”
In response to alleged atrocities outside Kyiv, the United States has imposed sanctions on Putin’s two older daughters, saying it is stepping up sanctions against Russian banks. Britain has banned investment in Russia and vowed to end its dependence on Russian coal and oil by the end of the year.
The EU is expected to halt imports of Russian coal
The U.S. Senate plans to pass legislation Thursday ending normal trade relations with Russia and codifying President Joe Biden’s executive ban on Russian oil imports. The suspension of trade will allow Biden to impose higher tariffs on some Russian imported goods.
WATCH US and EU to impose sanctions on Russian energy:
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