LRussian forces now control “most” of Sievierodonetsk, a city in eastern Ukraine, which they have been shelling and trying to take for weeks, the region’s governor announced on Tuesday. “The situation is extremely complicated. Part of Sievierodonetsk is controlled by the Russians,” Sergiy Gaidai, head of the Luhansk region, said on Telegram. “Unfortunately, today Russian soldiers control most of the city,” he said. he declared on Ukrainian television, estimating Sievierodonetsk “90% destroyed”. Earlier in the day, however, he said that the Russians “cannot advance freely”, with Ukrainian fighters “still remaining” in the city. “The enemy is planning an operation to clean up the territory of the neighboring villages,” Serguïï Gaïdaï said again, saying that he had no news of three doctors who had disappeared since the day before.
On Monday, the governor announced that Russian forces had advanced to the center of Sievierodonetsk, a pre-war city of some 100,000 that is now largely destroyed and deserted. The city has been bombarded for weeks by Russian forces and pro-Russian separatists fighting alongside them. Dozens of civilians were killed there.
Sievierodonetsk and its twin city of Lysychansk are located more than 80 kilometers east of Kramatorsk, which has become the administrative center of Ukraine’s Donbass since Moscow-backed separatists seized the eastern part of this large coalfield in 2014. It was in this area that a French journalist from the BFMTV channel, Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff, who was accompanying a humanitarian vehicle evacuating civilians, was killed on Monday.
In addition, a “nitric acid tank” at a chemical plant in Sievierodonetsk, in eastern Ukraine, was “hit” on Tuesday by a Russian strike, announced the governor of the region, Serguiï Gaïdaï, by calling on the inhabitants not to come out of the air-raid shelters. “Do not leave the shelters” and “prepare face masks soaked in a solution of soda”, wrote the governor on Telegram, recalling that nitric acid could in particular cause lung damage or loss of vision.
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Towards negotiations for Odessa
Some 12,000 civilians could remain trapped in the fighting and shelling in this pre-war city of 100,000, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), an NGO whose bulk of its staff in Ukraine were based there, said on Tuesday. based until the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24. While it had distributed food and basic necessities until last week to the inhabitants of Sievierodonetsk and the surrounding region, “the intensification of the fighting now makes distributions impossible”, indicated its secretary general Jan. Egeland in a statement, calling on the belligerents to allow access for humanitarian organizations and the evacuation of civilians.
However, even a one-off ceasefire seemed unlikely, in the absence of any peace talks. One of the next priorities for Westerners seems to be the unblocking of Ukrainian Black Sea ports. A Russian blockade is paralyzing the export of tens of tonnes of Ukrainian cereals, raising fears of the risk of a global food crisis. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will travel to Turkey on June 8 to discuss the establishment of “secure corridors” for the transport of Ukrainian grain, his Turkish counterpart Mevlüt Cavusoglu announced on Tuesday.
On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the phone that Russia was ready to work with Turkey on the free movement of goods in the Black Sea, including “the export of grain from Ukrainian ports”, according to a statement from the Kremlin. The European Union is also looking for a solution for Ukrainian cereals. French President Emmanuel Macron – who holds the rotating presidency of the EU – said on Tuesday that he had proposed to Vladimir Putin on Saturday the adoption of a UN resolution which “would give a very clear framework” for the lifting of the blockade of the port of Odessa, first Ukrainian port.
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European oil embargo
Pending a breakthrough on this issue, the EU won an agreement from its 27 member states on the night of Monday to Tuesday on an embargo on Russian oil, long blocked by Hungary. The agreement, reached at a European summit in Brussels, provides that the embargo will initially only affect oil transported by boat, ie two thirds of European purchases of Russian black gold. Those transported by pipeline, on the other hand, are not affected by this sanction. An adaptation which made it possible to lift the veto of Budapest.
“This will cut off a huge source of funding for Russia’s war machine,” European Council President Charles Michel said in a tweet. The extension of the embargo to deliveries by pipeline will be discussed “as soon as possible” and, in total, 90% of Russian oil exports to the EU will be stopped by the end of the year, according to European leaders.
At the start of the summit, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky challenged the Europeans by videoconference on their need to stand up to Russia and dry up its financial resources, of which hydrocarbons represent an essential part. The oil embargo is part of a sixth package of European sanctions against Moscow, which also includes the exclusion of three Russian banks from the Swift international financial system, including Sberbank, the country’s main establishment.
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Gas, too early to sanction?
The latter, however, assured Tuesday that this measure would have only a limited impact. “The main restrictions are already in force […]. The exclusion of Swift does not change the situation for international settlements,” the bank, already targeted by heavy American and British measures, said in a statement.
Moreover, kyiv is still calling for an extended embargo on gas sold by Moscow. A decision that promises to be more difficult to obtain. Several European leaders pleaded in Brussels on Tuesday for a “pause” in sanctions, and some even outright ruled out the adoption of such a measure. “Gas is much more complicated,” said Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo on Tuesday. “Let’s stop there for now and see what the impact” of this sixth package is, he said.
“Gas should be part of the seventh package (of sanctions), but I’m also realistic, I don’t think it will be there,” said Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas. Without waiting for this sanction, Russia has already cut off the gas tap to certain European countries which refused to pay it in rubles. The Russian gas giant Gazprom has announced that it will suspend its deliveries to Dutch supplier GasTerra, partly owned by the Dutch state, from Tuesday, while the Danish energy group Orsted has indicated that its deliveries will be cut on Wednesday.
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New Russian soldiers sentenced
On the judicial front, Ukrainian justice continues to move forward with a beating drum in the judgment of “war crimes” committed according to it by Russian troops. After a Russian soldier was sentenced to life on May 23 for the murder of a civilian, a Ukrainian court on Tuesday sentenced to 11 and a half years in prison two Russian soldiers accused of having bombarded two villages with multiple missile launchers. of the Kharkiv region on the first day of the Russian invasion.
Alexander Bobykin and Alexander Ivanov were found guilty of “violation of the laws and customs of war”, announced the General Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine on Telegram. On Monday, the Prosecutor General of Ukraine Iryna Venediktova announced the opening of a first case concerning a rape committed by Russian soldiers. In total, Ukraine has identified 15,000 cases of alleged war crimes across the country since the start of the war, the magistrate said during a visit to The Hague (Netherlands).
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