Action in eastern Donbas area worsens; easing grain shipments discussed
The fight for Severodonetsk in the eastern Donbas area intensified Monday, according to a regional official, who said the situation in the city has “worsened for us.” Serhiy Haidai, governor of the Luhansk region, said in a TV interview Monday that Russian forces were shelling Severodonetsk but that Ukrainian troops remained in control of the city’s industrial zone.
Russian forces have a numerical advantage in the intense battle for the key eastern city of Severodonetsk, but Ukraine has “every chance” to fight back, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday.
In some areas, Russian forces have a tenfold advantage in artillery, said Kyrylo Budanov, chief of Ukrainian military intelligence. “Despite this, we are gradually pushing the occupiers out of the city,” he said.
Speaking after a visit to front-line areas in
Ukraine’s east on Sunday, Zelensky said things could become very difficult if Russian breaks through in the Donbas region. Russia constantly wants to occupy the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, where the situation is “threatening,” the president added, according to Reuters.
Zelensky discussed a plan to ease the blockade on Ukrainian ports during a phone call with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
With Russia preventing commercial shipping in the Black Sea, Zelensky estimated that 22 million to 25 million metric tons of grain is waiting to be exported, with global food prices rising and fears of shortages
in Middle Eastern and African countries that rely on imports from Ukraine.
A grain corridor guaranteed by a third country’s navy had been under discussion among Ukraine, Turkey and Britain, Zelensky said. The best way to achieve that would be an anti-ship weapon system, he added.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov sounded optimistic Monday about cooperation on the issue with Turkey. “Our Turkish counterparts announced that they are ready to help in the demining issue,” Lavrov said. “I think that our servicemen will agree on how to organize this better so then ships can go out to sea through the mined areas that need to be cleared. After that, we ourselves or together with our Turkish counterparts give a guarantee to deliver them to … the Mediterranean Sea.”
But Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba remained skeptical about any Russian involvement in opening the Black Sea to commercial shipping. Russian President Vladimir
Putin “says he will not use trade routes to attack Odesa,” he tweeted. “We cannot trust Putin, his words are empty.”
BRITAIN TO SEND ROCKET SYSTEMS TO UKRAINE
Also on Monday, Britain said it will send Ukraine launch rocket systems that can strike targets up to 50 miles away, despite a threat from Russian President Vladimir Putin that Moscow would attack unspecified new targets if Ukraine were given longer-range weapons. The United States said last week that it would send Ukraine rocket systems with a slightly shorter range than the systems Britain will provide. In Moscow, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov condemned the help being offered to Ukraine by other nations.
“The more long-range the systems that the West supplies to Ukraine, the further we will push the Nazis away from the territories where the threat to Russia comes from,” Lavrov said during a news conference Monday.
Russia is likely to have
installed new air defense systems on Snake Island, south of Odessa in the Black Sea, the British Defense Ministry said Monday.
They would include SA-15 and SA-22 mobile antiaircraft missile units, which would provide air defense for Russian naval vessels operating in the western Black Sea.
Russia lost its Black Sea flagship Moskva after a fire and explosion onboard the vessel in April, when it was about 75 miles from Odessa. Ukraine said it struck the Moskva with two antiship missiles, setting off munitions onboard and causing the warship to sink during a storm. Russia claimed the fire was accidental but acknowledged that the Moskva subsequently sank.
In February, soon after Russia attacked Ukraine, a team of Ukrainian border guards on Snake Island defied a demand from the Moskva to surrender and were later reported captured and held as prisoners of war.
“Russia’s activity on Snake Island contributes to
its blockade of the Ukrainian coast and hinders the resumption of maritime trade, including exports of Ukrainian grain,” the British Defense Ministry said in its intelligence update.
An estimated 20 million tons of wheat are stuck in Ukraine, unable to be shipped through Black Sea ports. The situation has spurred concerns about rising food prices and shortages in the Middle Eastern and African nations.
HIGH-PROFILE AMERICANS BARRED FROM RUSSIA
In response to U.S. sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine, Russia has announced more travel bans targeting notable Americans, adding to a list of high-profile people prevented from entering the country.
United Airlines President Brett Hart, Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings were among the more than 60 Americans barred from entering Russia in response “to the ever-expanding U.S. sanctions against Russian political and public figures, as well as representatives of domestic business,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said Monday.
Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, Universal Pictures President Peter Cramer and Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young also are part of the list.
Last month, Russia barred nearly 1,000 Americans from entering the country in response to the U.S. stance on the war, including President Joe Biden and high-ranking officials in his administration, as well as media personalities.
The Russian military has started to turn over the bodies of Ukrainian fighters killed during the weekslong siege of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, the Associated Press reported Monday.
According to the AP, Maksym Zhorin, a military commander and former leader of the Azov Regiment of Ukrainian fighters, said dozens of bodies have been transferred to Kyiv and are undergoing DNA testing as authorities try to identify them.
Mariupol’s Azovstal Iron and Steel Works, with its network of underground tunnels, was a final stronghold for hundreds of Ukrainian fighters, as well as trapped civilians, for weeks after the Russians took effective control of the strategically important port city.
The Ukrainian forces there finally gave up the fight on May 16.
On Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited troops on the front lines in eastern Ukraine, including in Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk, where officials accused Russia of shelling a humanitarian aid facility.
Rockets had struck Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, for the first time in a month on Sunday. Russia claimed its missiles destroyed tanks and other armored vehicles sent to Ukraine by Eastern European allies.