Some 500 civilians believed to be trapped alongside soldiers inside Azot, a chemical factory in Sievierodonetsk, are preparing to flee the city through a possible humanitarian corridor this morning.
Serhiy Haidai, Ukrain’es governor of Luhansk region, said about 500 civilians, 40 of them children, were sheltering from heavy Russian attacks on the plant. Russia has told Ukrainian forces holed up there to lay down their arms
British intelligence appears to have confirmed the claims that civilians are hiding there. Russian forces now control the majority of the Ukrainian city, Britain’s Ministry of Defence said in its latest report.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said the outcome of the battle for the Donbas region will determine the course of the war, adding that Ukraine’s forces are suffering “painful losses” in Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk. The battle for Luhansk’s Sievierodonetsk is now the biggest fight in Ukraine as its defenders try to repel a fierce Russian onslaught in the twin eastern cities.
Zelenskiy repeated his call for the west to step up the provision of heavy weapons to Ukraine. Ukraine’s deputy defence minister Hanna Malyar said the country had received only 10% of what it asked for and there was no path to victory without the aid: “No matter how hard Ukraine tries, no matter how professional our army is, without the help of western partners we will not be able to win this war”. Zelenskiy added that Ukraine does not have enough anti-missile systems to shoot down Russian projectiles targeting its cities. “Our country does not have enough of them ... there can be no justification in delays in providing them.”
Russia’s ministry of defence has claimed that it has destroyed an ammunition depot for weapons transferred by Nato as well as weapons and military equipment sent from the US and European countries at several railway stations.
Maksym Kozytskyi, governor of Lviv, has said six people including a one-year-old boy were injured when they were hit by debris from a Russian missile that had been downed.
Roman Starovoyt, the governor of Kursk, said the Krupets checkpoint in Rylsky district within Russia, was fired on by Ukrainian forces. The headquarters of the territorial defence of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic has claimed Ukraine shelled 18 settlements within the occupied region.
Dmitry Medvedev, a long-term ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia, has posted a message to Telegram in which he expressed doubt that “Ukraine will even exist on the world map” in two years time.
Europe’s unity over the war in Ukraine is at risk as public attention increasingly shifts from the battlefield to cost of living concerns, polling across 10 European countries suggests, with the divide deepening between voters who want a swift end to the conflict and those who want Russia punished.
France’s President Emmanuel Macron is on a visit to Romania. He will travel to Moldova later today, and it is rumoured in diplomatic circles that he will visit Kyiv tomorrow alongside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi.
US President Joe Biden said temporary silos will be built along the border with Ukraine, including in Poland, in a bid to help export more grain from the war-torn country.
Nato must build out “even higher readiness” and strengthen its weapons capabilities along its eastern border, the military alliance’s chief said on Tuesday ahead of a summit in Madrid at the end of the month. Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance needed a “more robust and combat-ready forward presence and an even higher readiness and more pre-positioned equipment and supplies.”
Leaders of seven European Nato members pledged support for applications by Sweden and Finland to join the alliance. “My message on Swedish and Finnish membership is that I strongly welcome that. It’s an historic decision. It will strengthen them, it will strengthen us,” Stoltenberg told reporters after a meeting at The Hague on Tuesday.
Jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has reportedly been moved to maximum-security prison. Navalny was moved to the IK-6 prison in the village of Melekhovo in the Vladimir region, Russian news agencies reported, citing Sergei Yazhan, chairman of the regional Public Monitoring Commission.
Russia banned British journalists, including correspondents from the Guardian, and defence industry figures from entering the country, calling it a response to western sanctions and pressure on its state-run media outlets abroad.
Pope Francis said Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine was “perhaps somehow provoked” as he recalled a conversation in the run-up to the war in which he was warned that Nato was “barking at the gates of Russia”.
Putin probably still wants to capture much if not all of Ukraine but has had to narrow his tactical objectives in war, the US undersecretary of defence has said. “I still think he has designs on a significant portion of Ukraine, if not the whole country. That said, I do not think he can achieve those objectives,” Colin Kahl said while speaking at an event hosted by the centre for new American security.
