Ukrainian forces consolidated control over the north of the country following the Russian withdrawal and braced for a major new round of battles in the eastern Donbas region.
As heavy clashes continued in and near Donbas, Russia pressed on with its campaign of long-range missile strikes, targeting fuel depots across Ukraine and an industrial facility in the city of Novomoskovsk, local officials said.
Turkey, which has supplied Ukraine with weapons such as Bayraktar TB2 armed drones while also maintaining close relations with Russia, became the first major nation to send diplomats back to Kyiv now that it is no longer under threat of being shelled or overrun. Turkey has served as the venue for the latest round of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, and is involved in efforts to transport civilians and wounded soldiers by sea from the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol.
Turkey’s embassy, which had relocated to the western Ukrainian city of Chernivtsi, reopened in Kyiv and will resume consular services, it said on social media. The U.S., by contrast, currently doesn’t have any diplomatic presence on Ukrainian soil, with embassy staff operating from Poland. Several Western leaders have visited Kyiv to show solidarity in recent weeks, including European Parliament President Roberta Metsola and the prime ministers of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia.
While Russia’s withdrawal from northern Ukraine has relieved pressure on Kyiv and lifted the siege of the cities of Sumy and Chernihiv, it has also allowed Moscow to focus on seizing the entirety of the eastern Donbas region and trying to encircle the large Ukrainian military contingent there. Heavy battles continued Wednesday south of the eastern Ukrainian city of Izyum as Russian forces attempted to break through and link up with Russian troops trying to push north from Mariupol.
“The enemy’s main effort is on preparing an offensive to establish full control over the Donetsk and Luhansk regions" that make up Donbas, Ukraine’s General Staff said in Wednesday’s briefing. Ukrainian forces in the Kherson region have seized three villages, pushing Russian forces further away from the major city of Kryvyi Rih, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown, the military added.
The mayor of the town of Rubizhne in the Luhansk region, where some neighborhoods have been seized by Russian forces, has switched sides and is now working with the occupation forces, the regional government said. The mayor, Serhii Khortiv, released a video repeating Russian propaganda points about the war.
Overnight, Russia carried out a series of missile strikes, targeting once again fuel depots as it sought to deprive Ukrainian forces of fuel. Ukrainian demining teams, meanwhile, continued removing unexploded ordnance, land mines and booby traps left behind by Russian forces in the liberated areas, including the town of Bucha, where hundreds of civilians were killed during the Russian occupation.
Mr. Zelensky addressed the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday, saying Russia should be removed from it or that it otherwise be dissolved, after warning that newly uncovered atrocities following the withdrawal of Russian forces near Kyiv could be worse than those in Bucha.
“It is difficult to find a war crime that the occupiers have not committed," Mr. Zelensky said during a virtual appearance at the council’s chamber in New York. He has previously said that more than 300 civilians had been tortured or killed in Bucha.
Mr. Zelensky said civilians were “crushed by tanks in civilian cars in the middle of the road—for fun" as well as “raped and killed in front of their own children."
Mr. Zelensky’s speech came as the U.S. and European Union prepared to impose broad new packages of sanctions on Moscow, with Washington planning a ban on all new investment in Russia and the European Commission proposing a ban on imports of Russian coal and sanctions on two of President Vladimir Putin’s daughters. The Biden administration is preparing to impose a second round of sanctions this week, including on two of Russia’s biggest banks and on Mr. Putin’s daughters, U.S. officials said.
The U.S. is expected to announce as soon as Wednesday sanctions on Sberbank, Russia’s largest lender, and Alfa Bank, one of the country’s top private banks, the officials said.
The Security Council hasn’t taken action because Moscow, as a permanent member, wields a veto that it has used to block binding resolutions on Ukraine. Mr. Zelensky said Russia should be stripped of its seat to remove “a source of war from blocking decisions about its own aggression."
“The U.N. system must be reformed immediately so that the right of veto is not the right of death," he said. “There can be no more exceptions, privileges."
Western diplomats and legal experts don’t see an easy way to remove Russia from the Security Council, since the council’s permanent membership is set in the U.N. Charter.
Moscow has denied any responsibility for atrocities in territories its army recently occupied in Ukraine, calling the video footage from Bucha staged. Russia’s ambassador to the U.N., Vasily Nebenzya, dismissed reports of slain civilians in Bucha as a provocation from Ukraine.
“We place on your conscience the ungrounded accusations against the Russian military, which are not confirmed by any eyewitnesses," Mr. Nebenzya said in remarks directed toward Mr. Zelensky.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said at the meeting that the war in Ukraine is one of the greatest challenges ever to the international order. Rosemary DiCarlo, undersecretary-general for political affairs, acknowledged the reports of slain civilians in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, as well as the arbitrary detention and possible forced disappearance of Ukrainian civilians who resisted Russia’s occupation.
A spokesman for Mr. Guterres said he has “repeatedly pointed to the ways in which disunity in the council prevents it from acting effectively" but that “any changes to the Security Council’s composition are to be handled by the member states."
A move to change the U.N. Charter or expel Russia completely from the U.N. requires a vote in the broader General Assembly as well as support in the Security Council, where Russia has a veto.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday that the U.S. shares Mr. Zelensky’s frustration that Russia is a permanent member of the Security Council, but she added, “We don’t see that changing."
