KYIV – Russia’s army has “fully occupied” the key Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk after weeks of fighting, its mayor said, as Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged to send nuclear-capable missiles to Belarus within months.
As the war enters its fifth month, the capture of Severodonetsk marks an important strategic win for Moscow, which is seeking to gain full control over the east of the country after failing in its early objectives.
The industrial hub was the scene of weeks of running battles before the Ukrainian army began withdrawing its outgunned forces to better defend the neighbouring city of Lysychansk.
“The city has been fully occupied by the Russians,” Mayor Oleksandr Striuk said yesterday.
A few hours earlier, pro-Moscow separatists said Russian troops and their allies had entered Lysychansk, which faces Severodonetsk on high ground across the Donets River. Its capture would give Russia control of the entire Lugansk region of the Donbas.
“Street fighting is currently taking place,” a representative of the separatists, Andrei Marochko, said on Telegram, in a claim that could not be independently verified.
Far from the embattled Donbas, meanwhile, a flurry of Russian missiles was striking targets in northern and western Ukraine.
“More than 50 missiles of various types were fired: air, sea, and ground-based,” Ukraine’s air force command said yesterday, noting the difficulty of intercepting Russian models such as the Iskander.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who will address G7 leaders tomorrow, said cities as far away as Lviv, near the Polish border, had been struck.
“This confirms...that Ukraine needs more assistance with weapons, and that air defence systems – the modern systems which our partners have – should not be on the sites or in storage, but in Ukraine,” he said in his daily address.
In Saint Petersburg on Saturday, Putin said Russia would deliver Iskander-M missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads to Belarus in the coming months, as he received Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko.
He also offered to upgrade Belarus’ warplanes to make them capable of carrying nuclear weapons, in comments broadcast on Russian television.
Putin has referred to nuclear weapons several times since his country invaded Ukraine on February 24, in what the West has seen as a warning to the West not to intervene.
Ukraine said it had come under “massive bombardment” yesterday morning from neighbouring Belarus which, although a Russian ally, is not officially involved in the conflict.
Twenty rockets “fired from the territory of Belarus and from the air” targeted the village of Desna in the northern Chernigiv region, Ukraine’s northern military command said.
It said infrastructure was hit, but no casualties had yet been reported.
Belarus has provided logistic support to Moscow since its February 24 invasion, particularly in the first few weeks, and like Russia has been targeted by Western sanctions.
“Today’s strike is directly linked to Kremlin efforts to pull Belarus as a co-belligerent into the war in Ukraine,” the Ukrainian intelligence service said.
Russia’s weekend breakthrough in Severodonetsk came on the eve of a week of feverish Western diplomacy, as United States President Joe Biden flew to Europe for a G7 summit that starts today, and Nato talks later in the week.
“Ukraine can win and it will win, but they need our backing to do so,” said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in a statement on the eve of the summit.
“Now is not the time to give up on Ukraine.”
The Western allies will take stock of the effectiveness of sanctions imposed so far against Moscow, consider possible new aid for Ukraine, and begin turning their eye to longer-term reconstruction plans.
The European Union offered a strong show of support on Thursday when it granted Ukraine candidate status, although the path to membership is long. – AFP, June 26, 2022
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