প্রকাশ: 07/07/2022
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said attempts by
the West to punish a nuclear power such as Russia for the war in Ukraine risked
endangering humanity, as the near five-month conflict leaves cities in ruins
and thousands homeless.
Russia’s 24 February invasion of Ukraine has triggered the
most serious crisis in relations between Russia and the West since the 1962
Cuban Missile Crisis, when many people feared the world was on the brink of
nuclear war.
US president Joe Biden says Russian president Vladimir Putin
is a war criminal and has led the West in arming Ukraine and imposing crippling
sanctions on Russia.
“The idea of punishing a country that has one of the largest
nuclear potentials is absurd. And potentially poses a threat to the existence
of humanity,” Medvedev, now deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council,
said on Telegram on Wednesday.
Russia and the United States control about 90 per cent of
the world’s nuclear warheads, with around 4,000 warheads each in their military
stockpiles, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
Medvedev cast the United States as an empire which had
spilled blood across the world, citing the killing of Native Americans, US
nuclear attacks on Japan and a host of wars ranging from Vietnam to
Afghanistan.
Attempts to use courts or tribunals to investigate Russia’s
actions in Ukraine would, Medvedev said, be futile and risk global devastation.
Ukraine and its Western allies say Russian forces have engaged in war crimes.
Putin launched his invasion, calling it a “special military
operation”, to demilitarise Ukraine, root out what he said were dangerous
nationalists and protect Russian speakers in that country.
Ukraine and its allies say Russia launched an imperial-style
land grab, sparking the biggest conflict in Europe since World War Two.
After failing to seize the capital Kyiv early, Russia is now
waging a war of attrition for Ukraine’s Donbas region, parts of which are
controlled by Russian separatist proxies.
On Sunday, Putin claimed his biggest victory when Ukrainian
forces withdrew from Luhansk province. Russian forces then launched an
offensive to take neighbouring Donetsk province. Donetsk and Luhansk comprise
the Donbas.
Russia says it wants to wrest control of the eastern and
heavily industrial region on behalf of Moscow-backed separatists in two
self-proclaimed people’s republics.
Heavy Shelling
On Wednesday, the Ukrainian military said it had so far
staved off any major Russian advance into the north of Donetsk, but pressure is
intensifying with heavy shelling on the city of Sloviansk and nearby populated
areas.
It said Russian forces were bombarding several Ukrainian
towns with heavy weaponry to enable ground forces to advance southward into the
region and close in on Sloviansk.
“The enemy is trying to improve its tactical
position...(They) advanced ... before being repulsed by our soldiers and
retreating with losses,” the Ukrainian military said in its evening note.
Other Russian forces, it said, aimed to seize two towns en
route to the city of Kramatorsk, south of Sloviansk, and were also trying to
take control of the main highway linking Luhansk and Donetsk provinces.
“We are holding back the enemy on the (Luhansk/Donetsk)
border,” Luhansk Governor Serhiy Gaidai told Ukrainian TV. Later, he said
Luhansk was still not entirely occupied by Russian forces and that Russia had
sustained “colossal losses.”
“They will continue to try to advance on Sloviansk and
Bakhmut. There is no doubt about that,” he said.
Sloviansk Mayor Vadym Lyakh told a video briefing the city
had been shelled for the last two weeks.
“The situation is tense,” he said, adding that 17 residents
had been killed there since 24 February.
Russia’s defence ministry says it does not target civilians
and on Wednesday said it was using high-precision weapons to take out military
threats.
Ukraine has repeatedly pleaded with the West to send more
weapons to repel the invasion that has killed thousands, displaced millions,
and flattened cities.
“At last, Western artillery has started to work powerfully,
the weapons we are getting from our partners. And their accuracy is exactly
what is needed,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly
video message.
‘No safe areas’
In the Donetsk city of Kramatorsk, which Russian forces are
expected to try to capture in coming weeks, Ukrainian soldiers and a handful of
civilians ran errands in green-painted cars and vans on Wednesday. Much of the
population has left.
“It’s almost deserted. It’s spooky,” said Oleksandr, a
64-year-old retired metal worker. He was unlikely to follow official advice to
evacuate, he said, despite an increase in missile strikes.
“I’m not looking for death but if I encounter it it’s better
to be at home,” he said.
Outside the Donbas, Ukraine’s second largest city Kharkiv
was being subjected to “constant” longer-range Russian shelling, Mayor Ihor
Terekhov said on Ukrainian TV.
“Russia is trying to demoralise Kharkiv but it won’t get
anywhere,” he said. Ukrainian defenders pushed Russian armoured forces well
back from Kharkiv early in the war, and Terekhov said around 1 million
residents remained there.
South of Kharkiv, the governor of Dnipropetrovsk said the
region had been battered by missiles and shelling, while on the southern coast
the port of Mykolaiv was also being heavily shelled, Oleksandr Senkevych, its
mayor, told a briefing.
“There are no safe areas in Mykolaiv,” he said. “I am telling
the people... that they need to leave.”
- Reuters
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