KYIV —
Ukraine said it came under “massive bombardment” Saturday from neighboring
Belarus, a Russian ally not officially involved in the conflict, the day after
announcing a retreat from the strategic city of Severodonetsk.
اضافة اعلان
Twenty rockets
targeted the village of Desna in the northern Chernigiv region,
Ukraine’s
northern military command said in a statement, adding that infrastructure was
hit, but no casualties had yet been reported.
Belarus has
provided logistic support to
Moscow since the February 24 invasion,
particularly in the first few weeks, and like Russia has been targeted by
Western sanctions — but is officially not involved in the conflict.
“Today’s strike is
directly linked to Kremlin efforts to pull Belarus as a co-belligerent into the
war in Ukraine,” the Ukrainian intelligence service said.
The strikes came
ahead of a planned meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his
Belarussian counterpart and close ally Alexander Lukashenko in Saint Petersburg
on Saturday.
Russia’s foreign
ministry on Friday condemned the decision by Brussels to grant Ukraine official
EU candidate status as a move to “contain Russia” geopolitically.
The decision
“confirms that a geopolitical monopolization of the CIS (Commonwealth of
Independent States) space is continuing actively in order to contain Russia,”
foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement.
Ukraine’s Western
allies meanwhile will gather on Sunday at a summit of G7 leaders in Germany,
where
President Volodymyr Zelensky is set to speak.
US President Joe Biden will be attending the G7 and a summit of the NATO military alliance in
Madrid next week.
‘Slow war’
In the face-to-face talks, the Western allies will take stock of the
effectiveness of sanctions imposed so far against Moscow, consider possible new
aid for Ukraine, and begin turning their eye to longer-term reconstruction
plans.
The EU offered a
strong statement of support on Thursday when it granted Ukraine candidate
status, although the path to membership is long.
Moscow dismissed
the EU decision as a move to “contain Russia” geopolitically.
After four months,
the conflict remains focused on the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, where
Kyiv’s forces have finally given up a key hold-out, the industrial city of
Severodonetsk.
Sergiy Gaiday,
governor of the Lugansk region that includes the city, said on Friday that the
military had received the order to withdraw.
“Remaining in
positions that have been relentlessly shelled for months just doesn’t make
sense,” he said on Telegram, adding that 90 percent of the city had been
damaged.
Severodonetsk has
been the scene of weeks of street battles as outgunned Ukrainians put up a
stubborn defense.
Capturing the city
and its twin across the river, Lysychansk, would effectively give the Russians
control of Lugansk, and allow them to push further into the wider Donbas.
But Ukraine’s
retreat from
Severodonetsk will not change the course of the war, said Ivan
Klyszcz, an international relations researcher at Estonia’s University of
Tartu.
“The big picture —
of a slow war of entrenched positions — has hardly changed. We cannot expect a
massive Russian breakthrough,” he told AFP.
Separately, Russia
said Saturday its troops had killed up to 80 Polish fighters in “precision
strikes” on a factory in Konstantinovka” in the Donetsk region. The claim could
not be independently verified.
Human remains
Russia has also intensified its offensive in the northern city of Kharkiv
in recent days.
An AFP team on
Saturday saw a 10-storey administrative building in the city-center hit by
missiles overnight, causing a fire but no casualties.
It had already been
bombed, prompting one soldier on the scene to note: “The Russians are finishing
what they started.”
On Friday, the same
reporters found a stray dog eating human remains in the town of Chuguiv,
southeast of Kharkiv, where an attack earlier this week left six dead.
In the southern
Kherson region, a Moscow-appointed official was killed by an explosive device
planted in his car, Russian news agencies reported.
Moscow’s deputy
head of Kherson, Kirill Stremousov, said the regional head of the department of
family, youth and sports had died “as a result of a terrorist act”.
It was the first
confirmed death of a pro-Russian official during a string of attacks on
pro-Kremlin officials in Ukrainian regions under Russian control.
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