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LAST UPDATE | 4 Jun 2022
UKRAINE SAID ITS its forces were managing to push back against Russian troops in fierce fighting in Severodonetsk despite Russia “throwing all its power” into capturing the strategic eastern city.
Lugansk regional governor Sergiy Gaiday said in an interview posted on his official social media that the invading forces had captured most of the city “but now our military have moved them”.
“The Russian army, as we understand, is throwing all its power, all its reserves in this direction,” said Gaiday, who on yesterday claimed that Ukrainian troops had won back a fifth of the city.
Severodonetsk is the largest city still in Ukrainian hands in the Lugansk region, where Russian forces have been making gradual advances in recent weeks.
Thousands of people have been killed, millions sent fleeing and towns turned into rubble since President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops into Ukraine 101 days ago.
The advance of Russian forces has been slowed by stiff Ukrainian resistance, repelling them from around the capital Kyiv and forcing Moscow to focus on capturing the east.
The press service of Ukraine’s presidential office on Saturday said Russian attacks killed four civilians in the Lugansk region as a whole.
The situation in Lysychansk – Severodonetsk’s twin city, which sits just across a river – looked increasingly dire.
About 60% of infrastructure and housing had been destroyed, while internet, mobile networks and gas services had been knocked out, said its mayor Oleksandr Zaika.
In the city of Sloviansk, about 80 kilometres from Severodonetsk, the mayor has urged residents to evacuate in the face of intense bombardment, with water and electricity cut off.
Ukraine also reported two victims from a missile strike on the port of Odessa in the southwest, without specifying if they were dead or injured.
Russia’s defence ministry said it had struck a “deployment point for foreign mercenaries” in the village of Dachne in the Odessa region.
It also claimed a missile strike in the northeastern Sumy region in a place where it said Ukrainian soldiers were receiving training from foreign instructors on using howitzers.
‘Shame and hatred’
Russian troops now occupy a fifth of Ukraine’s territory and Moscow has imposed a blockade on its Black Sea ports.
But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was defiant yesterday.
“Victory will be ours,” he said in a video speech marking the 100th day of the war.
Later, in his nightly address, he dismissed the Russian army as being reduced to “war crimes, shame and hatred” after failing military objectives.
But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said “certain results have been achieved”, pointing to the “liberation” of some areas from what he called the “pro-Nazi armed forces of Ukraine”.
The West has sent ever-more potent weapons to Ukraine and piled on ever more stringent sanctions against Moscow, with the European Union on Friday formally adopting a ban on most Russian oil imports.
Putin’s alleged girlfriend, former gymnast Alina Kabaeva, was also added to an assets freeze and visa-ban blacklist.
Food crisis
The war has sparked fears of a global food crisis – Ukraine and Russia are among the top wheat exporters in the world.
The United Nations said it was leading intense negotiations with Russia to allow Ukraine’s grain harvest to leave the country.
Putin in a televised interview Friday said there was “no problem” to export grain from Ukraine, via Kyiv- or Moscow-controlled ports or even through central Europe.
The UN has warned that African countries, which imported more than half of their wheat consumption from Ukraine and Russia, face an “unprecedented” crisis.
Food prices in Africa have already exceeded those in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings and the 2008 food riots.
Yesterday, Putin met the head of the African Union, Senegalese President Macky Sall, at his Black Sea residence in Sochi.
After the meeting, Sall said he was “very reassured”, adding that Putin was “committed and aware that the crisis and sanctions create serious problems for weak economies”.
French President Emmanuel Macron, meanwhile, said Putin had made a “historic” error in starting the war.
But he said the Russian leader should not be “humiliated”, and to leave room for diplomacy.
Media driver killed
A driver transporting two Reuters journalists in eastern Ukraine was killed and the two reporters were lightly wounded, a spokesman for the international news agency said.
A French volunteer fighter in Ukraine was also killed in combat, the French foreign ministry said.
In areas around the capital Kyiv, which Russian troops retreated from at the end of March, some residents remain in desperate need of assistance.
At an aid distribution point in Horenka, northwest of Kyiv, yesterday a tearful Hanna Viniychuk, 67, said she had joined the long queue in search of some basic necessities after losing her home to Russian bombardment.
“I’m grateful for this help,” she said.
Arkadiy Maznychenko, 75, said: “A lot of houses were burnt, damaged, so people have nothing at all. Everything is shattered, destroyed.”
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Its harrowing to read an article like this, that such mindless destruction is going on for so long. Meanwhile our main concerns here are getting through Dublin airport, cost of fuel, cost of living, keeping our homes overheated etc.
Of course there are people here with real problems. Between Russia and climate change we’re at a crossroads.
We need to sanction Russia and we need to reduce fossil fuel usage. Lets get going.
@Tony Brady: except were not reducing our fossil fuel usage instead we are buying Saudi oil through the UK. The same Saudi Arabia that’s done it part in levelling it neighbor for the last decade and creating the biggest humanitarian crisis (yes bigger than Ukraine) of our time. All little Ireland has done is moved for buying oil from one war mongering dictatorship to another one further away. Were making absolutely no difference in the world.
@Roy Dowling: we are reducing fuel fuel useage.a large on portion of new builds have solar power and or heatpumps. And there is plenty of retrofitting going on, and increase in purchase of electric cars,bikes etc.
@Roy Dowling: Agreed Roy, that’s why I said let’s get going.
The reality as we know is Ukraine is losing a huge number of soldiers daily. Multiple of 5 to 6 times that in injuries. And here they’re going to be encircled. This isn’t some valiant turning of the tide as Gaiday would have us believe. The blood of their sons is being used as old school red army style propaganda to feed the meat grinder. It’s horrific and shameful to the EU and others that diplomatic efforts have been halted.
Rather than LeoV talking of reassessing our neutrality a true leader would bravely embrace diplomatic efforts. Sad what might lie ahead once he takes the batten again.
The perfect example of weak men create hard times.
@Conor: hard to have dialog with Putin as he’s only interested in taking over part of a country that does not belong to him .
@Conor:
Exactly what “diplomatic” efforts do you want? Russia will only be forced to withdraw when they are suffering too much to continue. The focus should be on punishing Russia with every sanction and blockade available.
Appeasement does not work. Appeasement is why things got this far. Not an inch of Ukrainian land or any concessions should be given to Russia. Eastern european countries know this, concessions are rewards for Russia which encourage the same behaviour in future.
A certain group of westerners are a bit slow to understand this.
@Conor: We might as well be negotiating with the changing climate.
I presume you’re talking about Europe, Usa, Nato negotiating.
To my knowledge Ireland has done nothing to sanction Russia (except what it had to do as an eu member).
We chickened out on Aughinish, on the shipment of coal at the start of the war, and I’m not sure if we changed anything in the IFSC, used by all in sundry to launder money.
I would be delighted if somebody could tell me of somehing Ireland has done as a sanction.
@Conor: correction: Ukraine & Russia are losing huge numbers every day. Ukraine have made tactical retreats and then counter attacked when and where it made sense. They’re being very smart, unlike Russia. There is no negotiating with that thug Putin. You should look up how that worked with Hitler in the 1930′s
@John Mc Avinue: a retaliatory skirmish does not equate for the hit and run tactics you describe. Ukrainian units are being decimated, and units making public pleas to be equipped and trained and not used as cannon fodder. These are ordinary civilians who took up the call in the main not the professional and slightly better trained conscripts they’re facing. You believe they just throw their lives away en masse?
If you believe going toe to toe is the answer I suggest you continue on learning your history. Maybe start with Verdun or something 1915 in Belgium. Or some Sun Tzu!
Smarter ways to fight wars than toe to toe. Iraq and Afghanis shower us this. So who are the leaders here? Nothing glorious about the slaughter of war.
@Conor: do you have proof that they are being encircled get your facts straight
@shligo boyzz: absolutely… https://liveuamap.com/en/2022/4-june-russian-aviation-agency-extended-restrictions-in-southern
@Conor: Ukraine are making the public pleas because they need to weapons to continue coming from the west and it is working. You keep mentioning Ukraine losses but not Russian losses. The former have the full support of the general population & the west and can mobilise another million motivated but unskilled fighters. The latter has had to reintroduce Soviet era policies at home to prevent a revolution and is isolated internationally & economically. They aren’t even collecting their dead FFS. How much longer do you think they can keep doing that?
You call a counterattack a skirmish to diminish it despite not knowing the context of it. Russia has proven that they can’t support supply lines. They’re focusing everything on a single area and are still struggling. All they have is artillery!
Looks like it’s going like WW1. Gains the losses for both sides. What a waste just like all wars.
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