প্রকাশ: 23/05/2022
Ukraine ruled out a
ceasefire or any territorial concessions to Moscow as Russia stepped up its
attack in the eastern and southern parts of the country, pounding the Donbas
and Mykolaiv regions with air strikes and artillery fire.
Kyiv's stance has become increasingly uncompromising in
recent weeks as Russia experienced military setbacks while Ukrainian officials
grew worried they might be pressured to sacrifice land for a peace deal.
"The war must end with the complete restoration of
Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty," Andriy Yermak, Ukraine's
presidential chief of staff said in a Twitter post on Sunday.
Polish President Andrzej Duda offered Warsaw's backing,
telling lawmakers in Kyiv on Sunday that the international community had to
demand Russia's complete withdrawal and that sacrificing any territory would be
a "huge blow" to the entire West.
"Worrying voices have appeared, saying that Ukraine
should give in to (President Vladimir) Putin's demands," Duda said, the
first foreign leader to address the Ukrainian parliament in person since
Russia's Feb. 24 invasion.
"Only Ukraine has the right to decide about its
future," he said.
Speaking to the same parliamentary session, Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy renewed a plea for stronger economic sanctions
against Moscow.
"Half-measures should not be used when aggression
should be stopped," he said.
Shortly after both finished speaking, an air raid siren was
heard in the capital, a reminder that the war raged on even if its front lines
are now hundreds of kilometres away.
Zelenskiy said at a news conference with Duda that 50 to 100
Ukrainians are dying every day on the war's eastern front in what appeared to
be a reference to military casualties.
Russia is waging a major offensive in Luhansk, one of two
provinces in Donbas, after ending weeks of resistance by the last Ukrainian
fighters in the strategic southeastern port of Mariupol.
The heaviest fighting focused around the twin cities of
Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, interior ministry adviser Vadym Denysenko told
Ukrainian television on Sunday.
The cities form the eastern part of a Ukrainian-held pocket
that Russia has been trying to overrun since mid-April after failing to capture
Kyiv and shifting its focus to the east and south of the country.
Serhiy Gaidai, the governor of Luhansk, said in a local
television interview that Russia was using "scorched-earth" tactics
in the region.
"They are wiping Sievierodonetsk from the face of the
earth," he said.
Russian shelling and "heavy fighting" near
Sievierodonetsk has continued, but the invading forces failed to secure the
nearby village Oleksandrivka, a Ukrainian military statement said.
Russia's defence ministry said on Sunday its forces
pummelled Ukrainian command centres, troops and ammunition depots in Donbas and
the Mykolaiv region in the south with air strikes and artillery.
On Sunday evening, multiple explosions were heard throughout
the city of Mykolaiv, Mayor Oleksandr Senkevich said in a social media post.
Reuters was unable to independently verify those battlefield
reports.
Russian-backed separatists already controlled parts of
Luhansk and neighbouring Donetsk before the invasion, but Moscow wants to seize
the remaining Ukrainian-held territory in the region.
Ukraine's military said seven civilians were killed and
eight injured during Russian attacks in Donetsk on Sunday. Numbers for Luhansk
were not disclosed.
No concessions, no ceasefire
Ukraine's lead negotiator, Zelenskiy adviser Mykhailo
Podolyak, ruled out any territorial concessions and rejected calls for an
immediate ceasefire, saying it meant Russian troops would stay in occupied
territories, which Kyiv could not accept.
"The (Russian) forces must leave the country and after
that the resumption of the peace process will be possible," Podolyak said
in an interview with Reuters on Saturday, referring to calls for an immediate
ceasefire as "very strange."
Concessions would backfire because Russia would use the break
in fighting to come back stronger, he said.
Recent calls for an immediate ceasefire have come from US
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi.
The end of fighting in Mariupol, the biggest city Russia has
captured, gave Putin a rare victory after a series of setbacks in nearly three
months of combat.
The last Ukrainian forces holed up in Mariupol's vast
Azovstal steelworks have surrendered, the Russian defence ministry said on
Friday. Ukraine has not confirmed that development, but a commander of one of
the units in the factory said in a video that the troops had been ordered to
stand down.
Full control of Mariupol gives Russia command of a land
route linking the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow seized in 2014, with mainland
Russia and parts of eastern Ukraine held by pro-Russia separatists.
Russia cuts gas to Finland
Russian state gas company Gazprom said on Saturday it
had halted gas exports to Finland after Helsinki refused to pay in roubles.
Moscow cut off Bulgaria and Poland last month after they
rejected similar terms.
Along with sanctions, Western nations have stepped up
weapons supplies and other aid to Ukraine, including a new $40 billion package
from the United States.
Moscow says Western sanctions and aid for Kyiv amount to a
"proxy war" by Washington and its allies.
Putin calls the invasion a "special military
operation" to disarm Ukraine and rid it of radical anti-Russian
nationalists. Ukraine and its allies have dismissed that as a baseless pretext
for the war, which has killed thousands of people in Ukraine and displaced
millions.
- Reuters
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