Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is seen in a video at the House of Russia turned into the “Russian House of War Crimes” and shows an exhibition of paintings documenting alleged war crimes committed by Russian troops in Ukraine during the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos on May 22. FABRIS COFFRINI / AFP / Getty Images
Ukraine has ruled out a ceasefire or any territorial concessions to Moscow, as Russia has stepped up its attack in the east and south of the country, launching air strikes and artillery fire on Donbass and Nikolaev.
Kyiv’s position has become increasingly uncompromising in recent weeks as Russia has suffered military setbacks as Ukrainian authorities fear they may be pressured to sacrifice land for a peace deal.
“The war must end with the full restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty,” Ukrainian President Andriy Ermak’s chief of staff said in a Twitter post on Sunday.
Belarusians join the war in their quest to liberate Ukraine and themselves
Russia is pushing for an offensive in Donbass while Polish leader Duda is visiting Kyiv
Polish President Andrzej Duda offered support to Warsaw, telling lawmakers in Kyiv on Sunday that the international community must demand Russia’s complete withdrawal and that sacrificing any of it would be a “huge blow” to the entire West.
“There have been alarming voices saying that Ukraine must yield to (President Vladimir) Putin’s demands,” said Duda, the first foreign leader to address the Ukrainian parliament in person since Russia’s February 24th invasion.
“Only Ukraine has the right to decide its future,” he said.
Speaking at the same parliamentary session, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky renewed a call for tougher economic sanctions against Moscow.
“Half measures should not be used when aggression needs to be stopped,” he said.
Shortly after they both finished talking, an air raid siren sounded in the capital, a reminder that the war continues, even if its front lines are hundreds of kilometers away.
Zelensky told a news conference with Duda that 50-100 Ukrainians die every day on the eastern front of the war, which appears to be a reference to military casualties.
Russia is launching a major offensive in Luhansk, one of the two provinces in Donbass, after ending weeks of resistance by the last Ukrainian fighters in the strategic southeastern port of Mariupol.
The heaviest fighting has focused on the twin cities of Severodonetsk and Lisichansk, Interior Ministry adviser Vadim Denisenko told Ukrainian television on Sunday.
The cities form the eastern part of the Ukrainian pocket, which Russia has been trying to seize since mid-April after failing to seize Kyiv and shift its focus to the eastern and southern parts of the country.
Russian shelling and “heavy fighting” near Severodonetsk continue, but invading forces have failed to secure the nearby village of Alexandrovka, a statement from the Ukrainian military said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Sunday that its forces had hit Ukrainian command centers, troops and ammunition depots in the Donbass and the Nikolaev region south with air strikes and artillery.
Reuters was unable to independently verify these reports from the battlefield.
Russian-backed separatists already controlled parts of Luhansk and neighboring Donetsk before the invasion, but Moscow wants to take over the remaining Ukrainian-held territory in the region.
An explosion severely injured a Russian-appointed mayor in the town of Enerhodar, Russia’s RIA news agency reported. Reuters could not immediately determine what caused the explosion.
Ukraine’s leading negotiator, Zelensky’s adviser Mikhail Podoliak, has rejected any territorial concessions and rejected calls for an immediate ceasefire, saying it means Russian troops will remain in the occupied territories, which Kyiv cannot accept.
“(Russian) forces must leave the country, and then the resumption of the peace process will be possible,” Podoliak said in an interview with Reuters on Saturday, calling calls for an immediate ceasefire “very strange.”
The concessions would have the opposite effect, because Russia will use the cessation of hostilities to return stronger, he said.
The latest calls for an immediate ceasefire came from US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi.
The end of the fighting in Mariupol, Russia’s largest city, gave Putin a rare victory after a series of setbacks in almost three months of fighting.
The last Ukrainian forces, which detained the huge steel production of Mariupol “Azovstal”, surrendered, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced on Friday. Although Ukraine has not confirmed a full withdrawal, the commander of one of the factory’s units said in a video that Ukraine’s military command had ordered troops there to withdraw to save their lives.
Full control of Mariupol gives Russia command of a land route connecting the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow took over in 2014, with mainland Russia and parts of eastern Ukraine held by pro-Russian separatists.
Russia’s state-owned gas company, Gazprom, said on Saturday it had stopped gas exports to Finland, which rejected Moscow’s demands to pay in rubles for Russian gas after Western countries imposed sanctions over the invasion.
Most European gas contracts are denominated in euros or dollars, and last month Moscow cut off Bulgaria and Poland after they rejected the new terms.
Along with sanctions, Western nations have stepped up arms supplies and other aid to Ukraine, including a new $ 40 billion package from the United States.
Moscow says Western sanctions and arms supplies to Kyiv are a “proxy war” by Washington and its allies.
Putin called the invasion a “special military operation” to disarm Ukraine and liberate it from radical anti-Russian nationalists. Ukraine and its allies have dismissed this as an unfounded pretext for a war that killed thousands of people in Ukraine, displaced millions and shattered cities.
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