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Russia escalated its attack on Ukraine on the battlefield on Monday, hitting a city that has become a key battlefield to the east after Moscow expanded sanctions against those who condemned its actions during the war.
The struggle for Severodonetsk “has worsened for us,” Sergei Haidai, the governor of Luhansk region, said in a television interview. Russian forces are shelling and expanding their footprint in the city, although Ukrainian troops continue to control its industrial zone.
The huge losses come as the West tries to send more firepower to Ukraine as fighting in the country’s eastern Donbass region intensifies. On Monday, Britain said it would send missile systems that could be used to hit targets up to 50 miles away, despite threats from the Kremlin to retaliate. The announcement was followed by a promise from the United States to send such weapons to Ukraine.
It will take at least a few weeks for Ukrainian forces to be trained on how to use longer-range weapons, US officials said, and it remains unclear whether the West’s joint efforts to arm Ukraine with more powerful systems will be enough to win. of Russia.
Ukrainian leaders are seeking to boost troop morale. Speaking to reporters on Monday, President Vladimir Zelensky, who had visited units in Lisichansk, a city neighboring Severodonetsk, the day before, said Ukraine had “every chance” of regaining the city. Kirilo Budanov, the country’s chief of military intelligence, signaled that the “occupiers” were gradually being pushed out of Severodonetsk.
The assassination of Russian Major General Roman Kutuzov, confirmed by Russian state media, appears to have backed up the allegations. Kutuzov was the fourth general whose death in Ukraine was confirmed by Russian officials or pro-Kremlin media. Ukraine claims to have killed 12 generals besides Kutuzov.
However, on Monday, Zelensky acknowledged that the Ukrainian forces holding in Severodonetsk and Lisichansk had been outnumbered by “stronger” Russian troops. He also called the two places “dead cities.”
Mili equates the “horrors” of Ukraine with the suffering of World War II
Speaking on the annual D-Day in France on Monday, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark A. Millie, compared the suffering of Ukrainians to the “horrors” experienced “at the hands of Nazi invaders” during World War II. Mili and his colleagues from other countries supporting Ukraine are meeting this week in the province of Normandy to discuss how else they could help the government in Kyiv.
“The world is united in support of Ukraine’s defense against a decisive invader,” Millie said, adding that the struggle now is to uphold the principle that “strong countries cannot simply invade small countries.”
“This aggression,” he said, “cannot be left to stand.”
At the United Nations in New York, Ukrainian officials testified to the escalating sexual violence in Ukraine. Natalia Kabrovska of the Ukrainian Women’s Fund told a UN Security Council session that Russian troops were using rape “as terror to control civilians in the temporarily occupied territories.” The United Nations has received 124 reports of sexual violence during the war, which is the “tip of the iceberg,” said Pramila Patton, the UN special envoy on sexual violence in conflict.
Ukraine has accused Russian troops of rape, a serious crime of prosecution
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency also reported “extremely stressful and challenging working conditions” at the Russian-controlled Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, which regulators are yet to visit.
Meanwhile, the British Ministry of Defense announced on Monday that Russia may have installed new air defense systems in the Black Sea, south of Odessa on Snake Island. The anti-aircraft missile units believed to be stationed there will provide cover for ships operating in the area that were vulnerable to attack by Ukrainian forces. In April, the Russian Black Sea ship Moscow sank after Ukraine said it had hit the ship with two anti-ship missiles; in February, Ukrainian fighters on Snake Island were captured and held captive after deviating from Moscow’s demand to surrender.
Russia has begun handing over to Ukraine the bodies of Ukrainian fighters killed in the siege of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, the Associated Press reported on Monday. The remains were subjected to DNA tests to verify their identity.
Russia and the West have also traded sanctions against celebrities as Moscow blacklisted more than 60 Americans, including Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, and a federal judge in New York approved the U.S. Department of Justice to confiscate two private jets. of Roman Abramovich, a Russian oligarch close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Abramovich, who until recently owned the British football team Chelsea and has served as an intermediary between Putin and Zelensky since the start of hostilities, is accused of violating federal law by re-exporting more than $ 400 million US-made aircraft.
Shayna Jacobs, Lateshia Beachum, Dan Lamothe, Robyn Dixon, Karen DeYoung and Bryan Pietsch contributed to this report.
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