After failing to take control of kyiv and its region, Russian troops are now concentrating their efforts in an offensive once morest eastern Ukraine, where fighting is intense.
A large shipment of weapons, supplied by the West to Ukrainian forces in the eastern region of Donbass, was destroyed in northwestern Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday.
“High-precision long-range Kalibr missiles, launched from the sea, destroyed a large consignment of weapons and military equipment supplied by the United States and European countries, near Malin railway station, in the region of Zhytomyr,” the ministry said.
In this context, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky assured that “the end (of the conflict) will be diplomatic”, during an interview with the Ukrainian television channel ICTV. The war “will be bloody, it will be fighting, but it will end definitively via diplomacy”.
“Discussions between Ukraine and Russia will definitely take place. I don’t know in what format: with intermediaries, without them, in a wider circle, at the presidential level,” he said.
In the meantime, Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to circumvent the financial sanctions of Western allies, in particular by demanding that they pay for their gas in rubles.
Stalled negotiations
Finland, which refused these conditions, saw its supply of natural gas cut off on Saturday by the Russian supplier Gazprom.
“Natural gas deliveries to Finland under the Gasum supply contract have been interrupted,” said the Finnish public energy company, assuring that it might obtain gas from other suppliers and continue its activities “normally”. Supplier Gazprom confirmed the suspension.
The Nordic country, which angered Moscow by deciding to join NATO, joins Poland and Bulgaria among the countries to which Gazprom cut gas because they refused to pay in rubles, a demand formulated in April . Finland has already been deprived of Russian electricity exports since mid-May.
While the negotiations conducted a few weeks ago under Turkish mediation are at a standstill, Mr. Zelensky recalled having made it a sine qua non condition for the continuation of the talks that the Ukrainian soldiers entrenched in the vast metallurgical complex of Azovstal in Mariupol, in the south-east of Ukraine, are not killed by the Russian army.
But the Russian troops “gave the possibility, found a way for these people to come out alive” from Azovstal, he noted. “The most important thing for me is to save as many people and soldiers as possible.”
The Azovstal steel complex in Mariupol, the last pocket of resistance in this strategic port on the Sea of Azov, has “passed under the complete control of the Russian armed forces” following the surrender of the last Ukrainian soldiers, the spokesman said on Friday evening. from the Russian Ministry of Defense, stating that the news had been passed on to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Footage released by Moscow showed cohorts of men in combat gear emerging from the steelworks, some with crutches or bandages, following a long battle that had become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion.
“Signs of Worsening”
kyiv rejects the term surrender, Mr. Zelensky referring to “the rescue of our heroes”. “They will be brought home,” he promised in an interview with the private Ukrainian channel ICTV, during which he assured that 700,000 Ukrainian fighters were fighting once morest Russia.
In the Donbass coal basin, partially controlled since 2014 by pro-Russian separatists, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu assured that the conquest of the Lugansk region was “almost complete”.
Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman Oleksandre Motouzianyk said the situation “showed signs of worsening”, and that “Russian occupation forces are conducting intense fire along the entire front line”.
Three people were killed on Friday and five injured on Saturday in the Donetsk region, governor Pavlo Kyrylenko announced on Telegram on Saturday. For his part, the governor of the Kharkiv region (northeast), Oleg Sinegoubov, said that villages and small towns around Kharkiv have been targeted by numerous artillery fire in the past 24 hours, making a dead and 20 injured.
It is now time for war, and the G7 countries meeting in Germany promised on Friday to mobilize 19.8 billion dollars (18.7 billion euros) to help Ukraine “fill its financial deficit.
The day before, the American Congress released a gigantic envelope of 40 billion dollars for Ukraine, aiming in particular to allow Ukraine to equip itself with armored vehicles and to strengthen its anti-aircraft defense.
