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Post by Admin on Jun 1, 2022 0:46:05 GMT
Russia Gains Ground In Eastern Ukraine 5,087 views Jun 1, 2022 Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy warns Russia is using “maximum combat power” in eastern Ukraine but more help is coming as Ukrainian troops pour in and the U.S. sends in more weapons. The European Union is banning imports of Russian oil by ship but import by pipeline is still allowed.
A US-based think tank has said a Russian offensive in Severodonetsk is gaining ground, although its forces have not yet surrounded the eastern Ukrainian city.
Russia's defense ministry said its troops continued missile attacks, destroying large arms factories in Dnipropetrovsk and ammunition depots in Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine. Severodonetsk is seen as Ukraine's last stronghold in the area.
Russia has claimed its military is in full control of Lyman, a strategic railway hub in the neighboring Donetsk region. Moscow could use Lyman as a platform from which to launch attacks on other cities.
The governor of Luhansk said on Saturday that Severodonetsk is still in Ukrainian hands. He said on Ukrainian TV that Russian forces had seized a hotel on the city's outskirts, but had not been able to advance to its center.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday requested support from other countries, calling the situation indescribably difficult.
The Institute for the Study of War has said that regardless of which side ends up holding Severodonetsk, the Russian offensive would likely have culminated at the operational and strategic levels. It said that this would give Ukraine the chance to restart counteroffensives, to push back Russian forces.
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Post by Admin on Jun 1, 2022 17:54:13 GMT
Serhiy Haidai, the governor of the war-torn Luhansk Oblast in eastern Ukraine, has told Newsweek that any troops withdrawing from the front line city of Severodonetsk in the face of the Russian advance have a fallback plan, and will continue the fight against invading troops. Speaking with Newsweek by phone from Luhansk on Tuesday, Haidai—a Severodonetsk native who has been leading the evacuation of the region and working with Ukraine's military command—said Russian troops had captured a "significant part" of the city, one of only two significant settlements in Luhansk Oblast not yet under Moscow's control. "The fighting has indeed intensified significantly in recent days because the Russian army threw a lot of forces and equipment in order to capture the entire Luhansk region," Haidai explained. "This task is a priority for them, because this is not a particularly large territory and could become low-hanging fruit for the Russian high command that wants to show some victories." Victory in Severodonetsk would hand Russia almost full control of the Luhansk Oblast; one of Ukraine's two most easternmost provinces and a key war goal for the Kremlin. Taking Luhansk and neighboring Donetsk Oblast would allow President Vladimir Putin to claim victory in the Donbas, which has been split between Ukrainian and Moscow-backed separatist forces since 2014. The region is central to the Kremlin's narrative of its supposed "de-Nazification" of Ukraine and the "liberation" of the Russian-speaking population there. The situation is fluid, and it remains unclear how close Russian troops are to seizing total control of Severodonetsk, or how many Ukrainian troops remain inside the city. But the momentum is with the invaders, and Ukrainian troops are preparing fall back positions.
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Post by Admin on Jun 1, 2022 19:55:37 GMT
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed Tuesday that his country is losing as many as 100 soldiers a day as Russia presses its military offensive in the eastern Donbas region, where street-by-street fighting is being reported in some areas. “The most difficult situation is in the east of Ukraine and southern Donetsk and Luhansk,” Zelensky said in an interview with Newsmax that was published on Tuesday. “The situation is very difficult; we’re losing 60 to 100 soldiers per day as killed in action and something around 500 people as wounded in action. So we are holding our defensive perimeters,” he added. Russian forces controlled about 70% of Sievierodonetsk, a key city in Donbas, where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces since 2014 when Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea. “If the Russians manage to take full control over Sievierodonetsk within two to three days, they will start installing artillery and mortars and will shell Lysychansk more intensively,” Luhansk regional governor Serhiy Haidai said. Lysychansk, the only other city in the province not yet captured by Russia, remains under Ukrainian control for now, Haidai added. The Zelensky interview took place shortly before President Biden announced in a New York Times op-ed late Tuesday that his administration would send Ukraine “more advanced rocket systems.” On Monday, the president said the US would not provide Kyiv with such weaponry if it were used to strike targets inside Russia — a concern the Ukrainian president dismissed.
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Post by Admin on Jun 2, 2022 7:54:40 GMT
Will the transfer of advanced weapons to Ukraine lead to a widening war? 10,498 views Jun 2, 2022 The U.S. and Germany on Tuesday moved to send advanced weapons to Ukraine to blunt a Russian offensive in the east. Steven Simon, who worked on the National Security Council staff during the Clinton and Obama administrations and a fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology joins Nick Schifrin to discuss the transfer of arms and the importance of diplomacy.
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Post by Admin on Jun 2, 2022 20:33:07 GMT
20% of Ukraine is under Russian control, President Zelensky says 19,592 views Jun 3, 2022 One-fifth of Ukrainian territory is under Russia’s control, with Donbas “almost entirely destroyed,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said while addressing Luxembourg's lawmakers. CNN’s Melissa Bell reports. #CNN #News
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