Advertisement

We need your help now

Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.

You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.

If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.

A Ukrainian serviceman inspects a site after an airstrike by Russian forces in Bakhmut, Ukraine Evgeniy Maloletka/AP/PA Images

Ukraine 'could win war by end of year', as Putin warns Finland that joining Nato is a 'mistake'

Major General Kyrylo Budanov also made unverified claims that a coup is already under way in Moscow to depose President Vladimir Putin.

LAST UPDATE | 14 May 2022

THE WAR IN Ukraine could reach a “breaking point” by August and end in defeat for Russia before the end of the year, Kyiv’s head of military intelligence has said.

Major General Kyrylo Budanov (36) today told Sky News he is “optimistic” about the current trajectory of the conflict.

“The breaking point will be in the second part of August,” he said.

“Most of the active combat actions will have finished by the end of this year.

“As a result, we will renew Ukrainian power in all our territories that we have lost including Donbas and the Crimea,” he said.

Intense fighting is currently raging in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, where Russia has recently been concentrating its forces without making significant progress.

Budanov said that Ukraine knows “everything about our enemy”, adding: “We know about their plans almost as they’re being made.”

The intelligence chief also made unverified claims that a coup is already under way in Moscow to depose President Vladimir Putin, and that the Russian leader is “very sick” with cancer.

Europe yesterday pledged another €500 million in military support for Ukraine as it resists the Russian invasion that began on 24 February, while Sweden and Finland’s moves towards joining Nato hit multiple obstacles.

Finland

Finnish President Sauli Niinisto spoke with Putin today about the Nordic country’s application for Nato membership, expected to be announced this weekend, his office said.

The phone call, which was “initiated by Finland … was direct and straightforward and it was conducted without aggravations. Avoiding tensions was considered important”, Niinisto was quoted as saying in a statement by his office.

But the Kremlin responded by saying that Putin viewed any end to Finland’s military neutrality as a “mistake”.

“Putin stressed that the end of the traditional policy of military neutrality would be a mistake since there is no threat to Finland’s security,” it said in a statement.

“Such a change in the country’s political orientation can have a negative impact on Russian-Finnish relations developed over years in a spirit of good neighbourliness and cooperation between partners,” the Kremlin added.

Finland is expected to officially announce its Nato membership bid on Sunday.

The Nordic country and eurozone member “wants to take care of the practical questions arising from being a neighbour of Russia in a correct and professional manner”, said Niinisto, who has communicated regularly with Putin in recent years.

Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine has swung political and public opinion in Finland and neighbouring Sweden in favour of Nato membership as a deterrent against Russian aggression.

Both countries have long cooperated with the Western military alliance and are expected to be able to join it quickly.

Sweden, like Finland traditionally neutral, is also expected to announce its own Nato membership bid in the coming days.

Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg has repeatedly said they would be welcomed “with open arms”.

Russia suspended electricity supplies to Finland overnight after its energy firm RAO Nordic threatened to cut off supplies over payment arrears, an official for Finland’s grid operator told AFP today.

The supplies “are zero since midnight”, Timo Kaukonen said.

RAO Nordic had on Friday said it would suspend supplies, citing problems with payments, as Helsinki prepares to announce its application for Nato membership in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Fierce fighting in Ukraine’s east 

Ukraine today claimed it is holding back a Russian assault in the eastern Donbas region and vowed to extract its last remaining fighters from a besieged steel plant.

The G7 group of the world’s top industrialised nations meanwhile reiterated it would “never recognise” the borders Russia has attempted to redraw through aggression and pledged more sanctions to tighten the screw on Moscow.

Russia has increasingly turned its attention to eastern Ukraine since the end of March, after failing to take the capital Kyiv.

Western analysts believe Putin has his sights on annexing southern and eastern Ukraine in the months ahead but his troops have appeared to be encountering stiff resistance.

The governor of the eastern Lugansk region, Serhiy Gaidai, said Ukrainian forces had prevented Russian attempts to cross a river and encircle the city of Severodonetsk.

“There’s heavy fighting on the border with Donetsk region,” Gaidai said, reporting big Russian losses of equipment and personnel.

“From interceptions (phone calls), we understand that a whole (Russian) battalion has refused to attack, because they see what’s happening.”

Aerial images showed dozens of destroyed armoured vehicles on the river bank and wrecked pontoon bridges.

‘Counter-attack’ 

UK military intelligence also said Russian forces had sustained heavy losses as they attempted the river crossing.

The highly risky manoeuvre reflected “the pressure the Russian commanders are under to make progress in their operations in eastern Ukraine”, it added.

Russian forces had “failed to make any significant advances despite concentrating forces in this area”, it said.

In Washington, a senior US defence official said most of the activity was now in the Donbas area.

Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Synegubov meanwhile said in a video on Telegram that Ukrainian forces were counter-attacking in the direction of the northeastern city of Izium.

The Ukrainian General Staff said troops had managed to push Russian troops out of the Kharkiv, a priority target for Moscow.

“The enemy’s main efforts are focused on ensuring the withdrawal of its units from the city of Kharkiv,” a spokesman said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday said his troops would fight to recapture all occupied territory, and those under siege.

That included those in the southern port city of Mariupol, where the last defenders are holed up in the vast Azovstal steelworks.

“Currently, very difficult negotiations are under way on the next stage of the evacuation mission — the rescue of the seriously wounded, medics. It is a large number of people,” he said.

Women, children and the elderly who had taken refuge in the tunnels and bunkers in the Azovstal plant were evacuated at the end of April with the help of the United Nations and Red Cross.

The Ukrainian General Staff said in an update Saturday that Russian forces continued “to blockade our units near the Azovstal plant” and carried out “massive artillery and air strikes”.

From inside, Sviatoslav Palamar, one of the leaders of the Ukrainian Azov regiment, told the online Kyiv Security Forum there were 600 wounded there and pleaded for help to evacuate them.

“We continue to defend ourselves, and we shall not surrender,” he said.

© AFP 2022 

Author
View 53 comments
Close
53 Comments
This is YOUR comments community. Stay civil, stay constructive, stay on topic. Please familiarise yourself with our comments policy here before taking part.
Leave a Comment
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Paula T Nolan
    Favourite Paula T Nolan
    Report
    May 17th 2021, 3:12 PM

    Lingering resentment due to lingering cost – still paying the Universal Social Charge. Also, it gave employers a new license to shrimp on salaries. I now take home the same after tax pay as in 2008. Resentment? Bloody furious. Especially as most of the boyos who facilitated crash are lining the hulls of their yachts with a greasy coat of paint for summer.

    258
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Chris Long
    Favourite Chris Long
    Report
    May 17th 2021, 2:45 PM

    Well if the banks employees says so…. its not like they’re on the payroll or anything!

    148
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Eoin Jackson
    Favourite Eoin Jackson
    Report
    May 17th 2021, 3:24 PM

    @Chris Long: you should hear what a lot of people who work in the finance sector have to say about their employers – they are also on the payroll… Being on the payroll doesn’t make anyone give praise to their employers. Not saying the banks are great or anything but the point you are implying is heavily flawed.

    48
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Adrian™
    Favourite Adrian™
    Report
    May 17th 2021, 3:03 PM

    Why would anyone say you have trust in a bank? Unless the mean they trust the bank to treat you like dirt and charge you handsomely for the pleasure…

    181
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Michael Healy
    Favourite Michael Healy
    Report
    May 17th 2021, 3:20 PM

    Banks had to be forced to put in a payment break for loans and mortgages in the first lockdown and wouldn’t even entertain it cone the second one, and yet wonder why people have low trust in banks. Some people think we have the bank debt paid off when in reality we are just adding the covid borrowing to the bank debt and we can forget things like the USC ever going away, meanwhile banks can put out these false mortgage and loan ads where they look great and friendly without realising when u fall on hard times, they turn into pack wolves and can cause people serious health issues trying to repay things back

    133
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Jack Cass
    Favourite Jack Cass
    Report
    May 17th 2021, 2:31 PM

    Ah! the innocence of youth.

    124
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Karen Delaney
    Favourite Karen Delaney
    Report
    May 17th 2021, 3:47 PM

    They’ve given us no reason to trust them. While the rest of the population scrimped out a living on much reduced pay, bankers continued with high salaries and bonuses.

    118
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Quiet Goer
    Favourite Quiet Goer
    Report
    May 17th 2021, 2:30 PM

    Pheic the cashless society

    42
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Corkonian In Dublin
    Favourite Corkonian In Dublin
    Report
    May 17th 2021, 7:28 PM

    Asking bank staff about bank culture is like asking Landlords to vote for rent increases. If you want to know the true state of the Irish banking sector look at Ulster Bank and KBC. They are both pulling out. Leaving the country with AIB, BOI and PTSB. All of whom took state bailouts (your and mine pension money) and have yet to repay all of it (nor will they). I would like the EU to insist on the government to all Irish Citizens to open bank accounts in any bank on mainland Europe away from the so called “Pillar Banks”

    32
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Niall Donnelly
    Favourite Niall Donnelly
    Report
    May 17th 2021, 5:17 PM

    Shower of Bankers!!!

    31
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Deirdre O'Byrne
    Favourite Deirdre O'Byrne
    Report
    May 17th 2021, 7:06 PM

    @Niall Donnelly: wunch of bankers.

    22
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute whitewater
    Favourite whitewater
    Report
    May 17th 2021, 6:35 PM

    You can always trust the banks to screw you over. The future of banking is the likes of Revolut and N26. Revolut did what the major banks have resisted for years.

    31
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Mark
    Favourite Mark
    Report
    May 17th 2021, 7:37 PM

    @whitewater: Revolut is not a Bank and your money is NOT covered under the deposit guarantee scheme

    13
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute thesaltyurchin
    Favourite thesaltyurchin
    Report
    May 17th 2021, 6:48 PM

    If they could just do their job properly. These days anyone who can make a decision is surrounded by a jungle of in_ept monkeys, making them nearly impossible to contact, 4 years waiting for BOI to let us draw down the last of our mortgage! Don’t build a house people, not with a bank at least.

    18
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Bill Spill
    Favourite Bill Spill
    Report
    May 17th 2021, 9:19 PM

    @thesaltyurchin: 4 years waiting on the last drawdown?!?!? There HAS to be more to that story! Genuinely interested if you want to share

    4
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Dsds
    Favourite Dsds
    Report
    May 17th 2021, 7:14 PM

    I would have more trust in a politician than I would in a banker…..

    13
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Rory J Leonard
    Favourite Rory J Leonard
    Report
    May 17th 2021, 7:36 PM

    Irish Banking Culture Board!

    Was tried and tested First-World Corporate Governance procedures set down for Plc’s, including for Banks, not sufficient to establish an acceptable culture here, Boss?

    Is Ireland the only country on the planet with such a quaintly named organisation that’s established to assure the public that adherence to procedures manuals, first written hundreds of years ago on proper behaviour in day-to-day banking, is no longer optional for the senior management?

    5
Submit a report
Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines.
Thank you for the feedback
Your feedback has been sent to our team for review.

Leave a commentcancel

 
JournalTv
News in 60 seconds