- The NATO chief says a Russian offensive will not be planned
- Russia’s campaign in Donbass has lost momentum – the British military
- Finland has confirmed its candidacy for NATO membership
RUSSIA LOZOVA, Ukraine, May 16 (Reuters) – Ukraine counterattacked Russian forces on the Eastern Front on Monday with fighting near Kharkiv’s second-largest city after Western military agencies said Moscow’s offensive in the Donbas region had stopped.
Adviser to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry Vadim Denisenko said in television comments that the fighting near Kharkov was “our counter-offensive.”
“It can no longer be stopped … Thanks to that, we can go to the rear of the Russian group of forces,” he said.
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The governor of the Luhansk region in Donbass, Sergei Gaidai, said the situation “remains difficult” as Russian forces try to take over the city of Severodonetsk.
He said leaders of the Luhansk People’s Republic, a territory in Luhansk controlled by Russian-backed separatists, had called for a general mobilization, adding that “either fight or be shot, there is no other choice”.
Fighting is raging around the city of Kherson in the south, and Russian missiles have hit residential areas in Nikolaev, the presidential office in Kyiv said.
Reuters was unable to verify the reports.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Sunday that Russia’s offensive in Donbas had stopped and Ukraine could win the war, a result few military analysts had predicted when Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24th.
Since then, Russian troops have suffered heavy losses as they have blown up cities and towns to ruins, killing thousands and sending more than six million refugees to neighboring countries. Russia denies attacking civilians.
In a strategic strike on Russia, which has long opposed NATO enlargement, Finland confirmed on Sunday that it would apply to join the Atlantic military alliance.
Sweden’s ruling Social Democrats also backed NATO membership, paving the way for applications and abandoning decades of military non-alignment. Read more
NATO and the United States have said they are confident both sides will join the alliance, and that the reservations of Turkey, which wants the Scandinavian countries to stop supporting Kurdish armed groups present on their territory, can be overcome. Read more
Ukraine has achieved a series of successes since February, reversing Russia’s offensive against the capital Kyiv and pushing Russian forces east of Kharkov.
Since mid-April, Russian forces have focused much of their firepower on attempts to seize two eastern provinces known as Donbass.
Moscow recognized the independence of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic in Donbas days before the invasion began.
British military intelligence said Russia had lost about a third of its ground forces in February, and its offensive in Donbass was “well behind schedule”.
Moscow has called its invasion of Ukraine a “special military operation” to liberate the country from the Nazis, a claim that Kyiv and its Western allies say is an unfounded pretext for an unprovoked war.
BORKI AROUND ISIUM
Ukrainian troops have received a boost in morale from the country’s victory in the Eurovision Song Contest over the weekend, with some saying it was a sign of impending victories on the battlefield.
“We have shown that we can not only fight, but also sing very well,” said Vitaly, a soldier stationed in a bunker north of Kyiv. Read more
The most intense fighting appears to be around the Russian-controlled city of Izyum in the east, where Russia has said it has hit Ukrainian positions with missiles. Read more
The Joint Forces Task Force of Ukraine said its troops had repulsed 17 attacks on Sunday and destroyed 11 units of Russian equipment. The command of the Ukrainian Air Force said that the Ukrainian forces shot down two helicopters, two cruise missiles and seven drones. .
Russia has continued to fire on civilian areas along the entire front line in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, shelling 23 villages and towns, the task force added.
The Ukrainian military also acknowledged the failures, saying Russian forces “continue to advance” in several areas of the Donbas region.
On Sunday, there was no interruption in Russia’s bombing of a steel plant in the southern port of Mariupol, where several hundred Ukrainian fighters are being held for weeks after the city fell into Russian hands, the Ukrainian army said.
Brightly burning munitions were shown descending steel mills in a video posted by a pro-Russian separatist commander. Read more
Alexander Khodakovsky, commander of Donetsk, told his Telegram channel on Monday that 10 Ukrainian fighters had come out of a tunnel at the Azovstal plant with white flags. Reuters could not verify the report.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said “very difficult and delicate negotiations” are under way to save Ukrainians in Mariupol and Azovstal.
Mariupol resident Natalia said her apartment had been bombed and three neighbors had been killed.
“We could not bury them because of the shelling. “Every day we put a person in a grave, but we couldn’t cover him with soil because of the shelling,” she said.
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Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Writing by Stephen Coates; Edited by Lincoln Fest and Nick McPhee
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