Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky warned that he hopes “Russia steps up its attacks this week“, a few days before the 27 EU countries discuss kyiv’s candidacy for the bloc.
This Monday “a truly historic week begins” Zelensky said on Sunday in his daily speech on the expected response from the European Union (EU) on whether to grant Ukraine its candidate status. After Ukraine received the go-ahead from the European Commission on Friday, the EU countries that they meet on Thursday and Friday to decide whether the country can receive the category of candidate, a decision that must be taken unanimously.
“We obviously expect Russia to step up its attacks this week.“, warned the Ukrainian president who stated that his troops are preparing for this scenario and are “ready”. Zelenski indicated that the Russians “regroup their forces in the direction of Kharkiv and the Zaporizhia region“and they continue to bombard fuel infrastructures. The president stated that they will respond to these attacks and admitted that they have had “important losses”.
Sergei Gaidai, the governor of Luhansk, the eastern region that has been heavily shelled in recent weeks, reported that “the Russians attempted an advance in the Toshkivka area and partially succeededBut he explained that the Ukrainian artillery worked and the whole of the advance guard was unsuccessful.
cruise missiles
Toshkiva is south of Lysychansk, the twin city of Severodonetsk, which has concentrated the offensive in the Donbas mining basin in the east. In Lysychansk there are signs that a fight is being prepared in the streets, the soldiers put up barbed wire and the police placed the remains of burned vehicles in the streets to stop the passage.
Gaidai denied on Sunday on Telegram the taking of the entirety of Severodonetsk by the Russians, but admitted that if “control most of“. The Russian Ministry of Defense, for its part, claimed responsibility for the taking of Metiolkiné, on the outskirts of Severodonetsk.
Severodonetsk is a key position for the course of the Donbas battle, which has been partially controlled by pro-Russian separatists since 2014. On the southern front, the Ukrainian army ensures that Russian forces “are unable to advance the ground“and they just keep bombing.
(Also: ‘It could last for years’: NATO secretary general on war in Ukraine).
The Russian Ministry of Defense reported who hit a factory in Mikolaiv with cruise missiles and that it destroyed “ten 155mm howitzers and up to twenty armored vehicles supplied to the kyiv regime by the West in the last ten days.” Mikolaiv is a port and industrial city, where about half a million inhabitants lived before the war. The town is targeted by Russian attacks because it is located on the route to Odessa, Ukraine’s main port, 130 km to the southwest.
‘War crime’
This Monday, the head of diplomacy of the European Union (EU), Josep Borrell, stated that Russia commits a “true war crime“by blocking the export of cereals and grains from Ukraine. Against the EU, Russia uses its hydrocarbons as a weapon and cut off the flow of gas to several countries last week. By contrast, Russian oil imports into China increased by 55 percent in May, compared to last year. In an attempt to reduce dependence on Russia, countries like Germany will have to resort to less ecological solutions. “To reduce gas consumption, we are going to have to use less gas to produce electricity and instead we are going to have to turn to coal plants,” he said on Sunday.
(You can read: Ukraine would face pressure from the EU if it joined the bloc).
“It is bitter, but it is essential to reduce gas consumption“Declared the Minister of Economy, the environmentalist Robert Habeck, despite the fact that the German coalition government had promised to abandon coal before 2030.
Austria also announced on Sunday the reactivation of a closed coal power plant in 2020, as the government wanted to close this source of energybecause it is very polluting and to produce electricity 100 percent from renewable sources before 2030. Meanwhile, Qatar announced that the Italian group ENI is joining the French company Total Energies in the North Field East project, which aims to increase production of the Gulf country’s liquefied natural gas by 60 percent by 2027.
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