Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
LAST UPDATE | 4 Jun 2022
UKRAINE SAID ITS its forces were managing to push back against Russian troops in fierce fighting in Severodonetsk despite Russia “throwing all its power” into capturing the strategic eastern city.
Lugansk regional governor Sergiy Gaiday said in an interview posted on his official social media that the invading forces had captured most of the city “but now our military have moved them”.
“The Russian army, as we understand, is throwing all its power, all its reserves in this direction,” said Gaiday, who on yesterday claimed that Ukrainian troops had won back a fifth of the city.
Severodonetsk is the largest city still in Ukrainian hands in the Lugansk region, where Russian forces have been making gradual advances in recent weeks.
Thousands of people have been killed, millions sent fleeing and towns turned into rubble since President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops into Ukraine 101 days ago.
The advance of Russian forces has been slowed by stiff Ukrainian resistance, repelling them from around the capital Kyiv and forcing Moscow to focus on capturing the east.
The press service of Ukraine’s presidential office on Saturday said Russian attacks killed four civilians in the Lugansk region as a whole.
The situation in Lysychansk – Severodonetsk’s twin city, which sits just across a river – looked increasingly dire.
About 60% of infrastructure and housing had been destroyed, while internet, mobile networks and gas services had been knocked out, said its mayor Oleksandr Zaika.
In the city of Sloviansk, about 80 kilometres from Severodonetsk, the mayor has urged residents to evacuate in the face of intense bombardment, with water and electricity cut off.
Ukraine also reported two victims from a missile strike on the port of Odessa in the southwest, without specifying if they were dead or injured.
Russia’s defence ministry said it had struck a “deployment point for foreign mercenaries” in the village of Dachne in the Odessa region.
It also claimed a missile strike in the northeastern Sumy region in a place where it said Ukrainian soldiers were receiving training from foreign instructors on using howitzers.
‘Shame and hatred’
Russian troops now occupy a fifth of Ukraine’s territory and Moscow has imposed a blockade on its Black Sea ports.
But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was defiant yesterday.
“Victory will be ours,” he said in a video speech marking the 100th day of the war.
Later, in his nightly address, he dismissed the Russian army as being reduced to “war crimes, shame and hatred” after failing military objectives.
But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said “certain results have been achieved”, pointing to the “liberation” of some areas from what he called the “pro-Nazi armed forces of Ukraine”.
The West has sent ever-more potent weapons to Ukraine and piled on ever more stringent sanctions against Moscow, with the European Union on Friday formally adopting a ban on most Russian oil imports.
Putin’s alleged girlfriend, former gymnast Alina Kabaeva, was also added to an assets freeze and visa-ban blacklist.
Food crisis
The war has sparked fears of a global food crisis – Ukraine and Russia are among the top wheat exporters in the world.
The United Nations said it was leading intense negotiations with Russia to allow Ukraine’s grain harvest to leave the country.
Putin in a televised interview Friday said there was “no problem” to export grain from Ukraine, via Kyiv- or Moscow-controlled ports or even through central Europe.
The UN has warned that African countries, which imported more than half of their wheat consumption from Ukraine and Russia, face an “unprecedented” crisis.
Food prices in Africa have already exceeded those in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings and the 2008 food riots.
Yesterday, Putin met the head of the African Union, Senegalese President Macky Sall, at his Black Sea residence in Sochi.
After the meeting, Sall said he was “very reassured”, adding that Putin was “committed and aware that the crisis and sanctions create serious problems for weak economies”.
French President Emmanuel Macron, meanwhile, said Putin had made a “historic” error in starting the war.
But he said the Russian leader should not be “humiliated”, and to leave room for diplomacy.
Media driver killed
A driver transporting two Reuters journalists in eastern Ukraine was killed and the two reporters were lightly wounded, a spokesman for the international news agency said.
A French volunteer fighter in Ukraine was also killed in combat, the French foreign ministry said.
In areas around the capital Kyiv, which Russian troops retreated from at the end of March, some residents remain in desperate need of assistance.
At an aid distribution point in Horenka, northwest of Kyiv, yesterday a tearful Hanna Viniychuk, 67, said she had joined the long queue in search of some basic necessities after losing her home to Russian bombardment.
“I’m grateful for this help,” she said.
Arkadiy Maznychenko, 75, said: “A lot of houses were burnt, damaged, so people have nothing at all. Everything is shattered, destroyed.”
Loyalists have to be made to understand, that times have changed. They should not be able to get away with their terrorist tactics as they did in the past. The Brits must be made to rein them in.
Loyalists up to their old tricks again but I wonder will we see any condemnation from the republican haters on this site? Loyalists hate the press as they are constantly being investigated for their criminality and links to the security forces. Their actions are largely ignored in the Republic where the focus is on one party’s fairy tale links to all sorts of innuendo and a non existent “threat” from a now disbanded former paramilitary army. That still doesn’t stop the “chicken lickin” scare stories being bandied about by people who refuse to move with the times. Printer cartridges and roll calls are after all more important than an ongoing threat from an organized criminal gang that intimidates and assaults people and communities on a regular basis.
Luckily we have reporters who do keep up to date and keep up the pressure on the UDA (who haven’t gone away you know!). The UDA obviously don’t like their continuing existence being brought up seeing as it shows that they are still active in “community development” such as extortion, drug dealing, racketeering and other crime. Hopefully the Press will launch a major campaign in support of one of their own and get this threat lifted.
I’d safely say the “Republican Haters” you refer to are more haters of all terrorist/criminal groups and not just Republiian groups.
Why did they issue a threat?? What did the journalist do or find out to get them that annoyed??
Probably one of two things. Criminality or collusion. It might also be linked to the intimidation of Catholics and Polish people in South Antrim. A number of pipe bombs have been left there by Loyalists over the past couple of years to try and clear the area of Catholics. The usual deranged idiots who are clueless about current affairs would have you believe it was SF or the non-existent Provo’s that were trying to drive the Catholics out! but luckily enough there are people who (like this journalist) keep up to date and are not afraid to take a balanced view of the world.
The UDA have quite happily being lurking in the shadows for a while, watching all the focus on Republicans while the UDA live off their ill gotten gains. Now that the focus has shifted to them they are not happy and no amount of empathy and hysterical rants from Southern anti-Republicans is going to take the spotlight off them. Even the Irish Independent ran the story and surly that must be a major worry to the Brigadiers up North.
Loyalists need to realise that times have changed , and they can no longer get away with their terrorist tactics, as they did in the past. The Brits should rein them in
Comments not getting posted on this one, something wrong?????
UDA denies making death threat to journalist
http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0820/uda-in-death-threat-to-belfast-based-journalist.html
have your say