President Volodymyr Zelensky said Moscow’s massive air and artillery strikes were aimed at destroying the entire Donbass region and urged Ukraine’s allies to expedite heavy weapons shipments to combat Russia on the battlefield. . On the diplomatic front, European leaders will formally set Ukraine on the long road to EU membership at a summit in Brussels on Thursday. Although primarily symbolic, the move would help lift national morale after four months of bloody conflict that killed thousands, displaced millions and destroyed cities.
“We must liberate our land and conquer, but more quickly, much faster,” Zelensky said in a video address released early Thursday.
“There were massive air and artillery strikes in the Donbass. Here the target of the occupiers is unchanged, they want to destroy the whole Donbass step by step,” he said.
“That is why we repeatedly insist on accelerating the delivery of weapons to Ukraine. To stop this diabolical arsenal and push it beyond Ukraine’s borders requires equality on the battlefield.”
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In a sign that the fighting for the Donbass was becoming more difficult, the Tass news agency cited pro-Moscow separatists as saying they had captured Vovchoyarivka, a village about 12 km (7.46 mi) southwest of the city of Lischensk. . If true, Lysychansk would be at higher risk of being cut.
As fierce fighting continues in the Donbass, the Russian military has recaptured Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, near the Russian border.
Russian attacks on Kharkiv on Tuesday and Wednesday were the worst for weeks in a region where normal life was returning as Ukraine pushed back Moscow’s forces last month. Kyiv characterized the attacks, which reportedly killed at least 20 people, as a bid to force Ukraine to pull resources from the main battlefields in the Donbass to protect civilians.
“There is no shortage of civilian shelling by Russian occupiers,” Kharkiv region governor Ole Sinyubov wrote on the Telegram messaging app. “This is evidence that we cannot expect a scenario similar to Chernihiv or Kyiv, with Russian forces withdrawing under pressure.”
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EU membership
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 in what the Kremlin calls a “special operation” to ensure Russian security and discredit Ukraine. Ukraine and the West call this an unfounded excuse for a war of choice that has raised fears of a wider conflict in Europe.
Russia has long opposed close ties between Ukraine, a former Soviet state, and Western clubs such as the European Union (EU) and the NATO military alliance.
Zelensky said he had spoken to 11 EU leaders on Wednesday about Ukraine’s candidacy and would call more on Thursday. He said that he previously believed that all 27 EU countries would support Ukraine’s candidate status. “We deserve it,” Zelensky told the crowd in Amsterdam via video link.
Diplomats say it will take a decade or more for Ukraine to meet the criteria to join the European Union. But EU leaders say the bloc should make a gesture that recognizes Ukraine’s sacrifice. The war in Ukraine has had wide-ranging effects on the global economy and European security, raising gas, oil and food prices, prompting the EU to reduce its heavy reliance on Russian energy, and prompting Finland and Sweden to seek NATO membership.
The EU will temporarily return to coal to deal with dwindling Russian gas flows without affecting long-term climate targets, an EU official said on Wednesday.
BATTLE FOR SIEVIERODONETSK
The battle for the border eastern town of Svyarodonetsk, where hundreds of civilians are trapped in a chemical plant, was seen alongside a dispute between Ukraine and Russia over who controlled the city. Serhi Gaidai, the regional governor of Luhansk, said in an online post on Wednesday evening that Russian forces were continuing to build reserves in Svyarodonetsk in an attempt to encircle Ukrainian troops.
He rejected Russian claims that his army already controlled the city. “The fighting is on,” he told Ukrainian television. “Russian forces do not have complete control.” Moscow says Ukrainian forces are trapped in Svyarodonetsk, the scene of the heaviest fighting recently.
It ordered him to surrender or die last week when the last bridge over the Siversky Donets River was destroyed. Inside Russia, fires raged through an oil refinery just 8km (5 miles) from the border with the Donbass region controlled by pro-Russian separatists, in what the refinery described Wednesday as a cross-border attack by two drones.
There was no immediate Ukrainian comment on the strike, which suspended production at the Novoshkhtinsk refinery. Ukraine usually does not comment on reports of attacks on Russian infrastructure near the border, which it called “karma” for Russian attacks on Ukraine.