Ukraine’s General Staff said Russian forces, now 98 days into their offensive, were pounding infrastructure in the eastern and southern regions, including the symbolically important city of Svyarodonetsk, which they entered on May 27. It has been the main focus of their ground offensive for several weeks. ,
There is a large chemical factory in the Soviet-era city of Svyarodonetsk. According to local governor Serhi Gaidai, Russian airstrikes struck the plant on Tuesday, blowing up a tank of toxic nitric acid and releasing a plume of pink smoke.
Gaidai urged residents to stay inside, saying Russia “attacked the Azot factory with a plane, resulting in toxic substances.” Reuters could not independently confirm the cause of the incident.
President Joe Biden announced a supply of precision rocket systems and munitions that can strike long-range Russian targets, part of a $700 million weapons package to be unveiled Wednesday.
“We have moved swiftly to send significant amounts of arms and ammunition to Ukraine so that it can fight on the battlefield and be in the strongest position at the negotiating table,” Biden wrote in an opinion piece in the New York Times.
A senior Biden administration official said the new supplies – which come on top of billions of dollars in equipment such as drones and anti-aircraft missiles – include the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), which Kyiv called “critical”. Is. To counter Russian missile attacks.
Addressing concerns that weapons such as HIMARS could draw the United States into direct conflict, the White House’s deputy national security adviser, Jonathan Finer, said Washington had sought assurances from Ukraine that the missile would not strike inside Russia.
However, Russia warned of an increased risk of a direct confrontation with the United States.
“We believe the United States is purposefully and diligently adding fuel to the fire,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. He said such a supply would not encourage the Ukrainian leadership to resume stalled peace talks.
nuclear force
Shortly after the announcement of the US decision, the Russian Defense Ministry said that Russia’s nuclear forces were conducting exercises in the Ivanovo province, northeast of Moscow, Interfax news agency reported.
The ministry was quoted as saying that about 1,000 soldiers were conducting intensive maneuvers using more than 100 vehicles, including the Yars intercontinental ballistic missile launcher. The report does not mention the US decision.
Russia has also completed testing its hypersonic Zircon cruise missile and will deploy it on a new warship in its Northern Fleet by the end of the year, a senior military official said on Wednesday.
Ukraine’s General Staff said Russian forces continued to encircle the northern, southern and eastern Svirodonetsk districts.
If Russia annexed the city and its smaller twin Lisichansk on the west bank of the Siversky Donets River, it would become one of the two provinces of the eastern Donbass region, which claims Moscow on the side of the separatists and a major war objective of the president. One of them will capture all of Luhansk. Vladimir Putin.
The Ukrainian army now occupies just 20% of Svyarodonetsk, the Russian army 60% and the rest “no-man’s land”, Ukrainian chief of the city administration, Oleksandr Styuk, told Reuters in an interview.
“The 20% is fiercely defended by our armed forces. Attempts are being made to drive out Russian troops. We hope that despite everything, we will free the city …”. Streeck said.
Governor Gaidai said defending Lisichansk was easy because it is located on a hill, but that Russian forces would target it with artillery and mortars once Svyarodonetsk had full control.
The leader of the pro-Moscow Luhansk People’s Republic, Leonid Paschnik, told TASS news agency that Russian proxies had moved at a slower pace than expected to protect the city’s infrastructure and “take precautions around its chemical factories”.
Jan Egland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council aid agency, which has long operated out of Svierodonetsk, said 12,000 civilians were trapped in the crossfire, without adequate access to water, food, medicine or electricity.
Before the war, the city was home to about 120,000 people.
weapon package
Officials said the new US package includes ammunition, counter-fire radars, several aerial surveillance radars, additional anti-javelin missiles and anti-armor weapons.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Wednesday that Berlin would supply Kyiv with its IRIS-T medium-range surface-to-air defense system.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for more weapons, rebuking the European Union, which agreed on Monday to cut imports of Russian oil for not clearing energy from Russia as soon as possible.
The European Union will impose sanctions on the import of Russian oil by sea. Officials said that two-thirds of Russia’s oil exports to Europe and 90% would be halted by the end of this year.
In response to the EU oil embargo, Russia extended its gas cuts in Europe, raised prices and intensified its economic battle with Brussels. Moscow said on Wednesday it may re-route oil exports to limit its losses.
Russia’s invasion has rattled European security systems, prompting Sweden and Finland to join NATO. The Nordic pair said on Wednesday they were talking with NATO member Turkey to address its concerns that they provide a safe haven for Kurdish militants.
The war has also disrupted Ukraine’s exports of wheat and other commodities, particularly affecting consumers in the world’s poorest countries with high food prices.
Pope Francis called on Wednesday to lift all restrictions on wheat exports from Ukraine, saying grain should not be used as a “weapon of war”.
Putin launched a special military campaign on February 24 to disarm and “deny” Ukraine. Ukraine and its Western allies call this a baseless excuse for a war of aggression