Ukraine said it withdrew a part of Svyarodonetsk’s industrial center in a battle that appeared on Saturday to disrupt the Russian campaign to capture the ruined city, part of Moscow’s offensive to take the eastern Donbass region. focus.
Luhansk province’s governor, Sergei Gaidai, told national television that Ukrainian troops had recaptured 20% of the lost territory in Svyarodonetsk.
It was “not realistic” that the city would collapse over the next two weeks, even though Russian troops were being deployed, he said Friday.
“As soon as we have enough Western long-range weapons, we will drive their artillery away from our positions. And then, believe me, the Russian infantry, they will just run,” said Gaidai. Reuters could not immediately verify his claim of the Ukrainian advance.
The war that Western governments believed the Russians planned to win within hours of the February invasion entered its 100th day on Friday. Thousands have been killed, millions uprooted from their homes and the global economy has been disrupted since Moscow’s forces were driven back from Kyiv in the first months of the conflict.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday denied that Moscow was blocking Ukrainian ports from exporting grain, blaming global food prices on the West.
“We are now seeing what is happening on the world food market, an effort to shift responsibility for emerging problems in this market to Russia,” he said on national television.
He said the best solution would be to lift Western sanctions on Russia’s ally Belarus and for this Ukraine To export grain through that country.
Ukrainian officials are relying on advanced missile systems that the United States and Britain recently promised to turn the war on their side, and Ukrainian troops have already begun training on them.
While Ukraine’s resistance has forced Putin to downplay his immediate goal of conquering the entire Donbass region, Ukrainian officials said he is intent on subjugating the entire country.
“Putin’s main goal is the destruction of Ukraine. He is not backing down from his goals, despite the fact that Ukraine has won the first phase of this full-scale war,” Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hannah Malayar told national television on Friday. told.
Moscow has poured troops and material into the Battle for Sevierodonetsk, which Russia must eliminate in order to take all of Luhansk, one of the two provinces comprising the eastern Donbass region that the Kremlin intended to capture. has done.
Reuters arrived in Svyarodonetsk on Thursday and was able to verify that Ukrainians are still part of the city.
Separately, two Reuters journalists were injured and a driver was killed on Friday after their vehicle caught fire as they tried to reach Svierodonetsk from an area controlled by Russian-backed separatists.
Ukraine’s Military General Staff said Russian troops attempted to move across the Sversky Donetsk River from Sveriodonetsk to Lysichansk, but were stopped.
In neighboring Donetsk province, Russian troops were just 15 km (9 miles) outside the city of Sloviask, regional governor Pavlo Kirilenko told Reuters.
Donetsk will not fall quickly, but more weapons are needed to keep the attackers at bay, Kyrylenko said.
Moscow says not affected by Western weapons
Moscow says Western weapons will add “fuel to the fire” but will not change what it calls a “special military operation” to disarm Ukraine and get rid of dangerous nationalists.
Russia still controls about a fifth of the country, with about half seized in 2014 and half since launching its offensive on February 24.
For both sides, the massive Russian offensive in the East in recent weeks has been one of the deadliest phases of the war, with Ukraine saying it is losing 60-100 soldiers every day.
Moscow has made slow but steady progress, squeezing Ukrainian forces inside a pocket in the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces, but failing to encircle them.
Meanwhile, Kyiv hopes that the Russian advance will end Moscow’s forces long enough for Ukraine to recapture the area in the coming months.
The war has had devastating effects on the global economy, particularly for poor food-importing countries. Ukraine is one of the world’s major sources of grain and cooking oil, but those supplies were cut off by the closure of Black Sea ports, with more than 20 million tons of grain stuck in silos.
UN aid chief Martin Griffiths on Friday ended “frank and constructive discussions” with Russian officials in Moscow to facilitate Ukraine grain exports from Black Sea ports, a UN spokesman said.
The talks came as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres tried to broker a resumption of both Ukrainian food exports and Russian food and fertilizer exports, in what he calls a “package deal”.
Kyiv and its allies blame Moscow for blocking the ports, which Ukraine has mined to prevent a Russian amphibious attack. Putin blamed Western sanctions.
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