Moscow on Tuesday promised “serious” retaliation against Lithuania after Vilnius implemented European sanctions linked to the invasion of Ukraine, where Russian troops continue to advance in the east.
Two days before the summit of European Union leaders, who will be called upon to decide whether to grant Ukraine a candidacy for the European club, a “total consensus” emerged within the Twenty-Seven during a meeting to accede to this request.
Describing as “hostile acts” the restrictions imposed by the Lithuanian authorities on the transit by rail of goods hit by European sanctions in the direction of Kaliningrad, Nikolay Patrushev, secretary of the Russian Security Council, declared, during a visit in this Russian enclave on the Baltic, that “appropriate measures” would be “adopted soon” and that they would have “serious negative consequences for the people of Lithuania”.
As Russian troops step up their advance in Donbass in eastern Ukraine, a US official announced in Washington that US Justice Minister Merrick Garland was on a surprise visit to kyiv, where he is due to discuss with Ukraine’s Attorney General, Iryna Venediktova, “US and international efforts to help Ukraine find, apprehend, and prosecute those implicated in war crimes and other atrocities in Ukraine.”
“Epicenter of Confrontation”
In eastern Ukraine, the Russians “fully control” the village of Tochkivka, on the front line, a few kilometers from Severodonetsk and Lyssytchansk, where fighting is raging, acknowledged the head of the Severodonetsk district, Roman Vlasenko.
“The entire Luhansk region is now the epicenter of the clash between Ukrainian and Russian armies,” added Mr. Vlasenko, who was speaking on Ukrainian television.
This region is almost completely controlled by forces from Moscow. Only the pocket of Ukrainian resistance around Lyssytchansk and Severodonetsk still escaped the control of the Russian army.
According to Mr. Vlasenko, “fighting is raging around the industrial zone” of Severodonetsk, where, according to local authorities, 568 people, including 38 children – mainly employees and their families – are now refugees inside of the Azot factory.
The factory is emblematic of this industrial city which had around 100,000 inhabitants before the war. The capture of the city by Moscow would be an important step towards the conquest of the entirety of Donbass, a mainly Russian-speaking region partly held by pro-Russian separatists since 2014.
The governor of the Luhansk region, Serguiï Gaïdaï, for his part, reported “catastrophic destruction in Lyssytchansk”, a twin city separated from Severodonetsk by the Donets, an impassable river since the bridges there were destroyed.
Suffering from daily bombardments, the region has for several weeks been the scene of violent artillery battles between Russian and Ukrainian forces. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged the Ukrainian military to “hold on”, saying the outcome of the war would depend on its resistance and ability to hold back the Russian army and inflict casualties on it.
In the Kharkiv region, the governor, Oleg Synegoubov, announced that 15 people, including an eight-year-old child, were killed on Tuesday and 16 wounded under the fire of Russian artillery. “These are the terrible consequences of the Russian bombardments in broad daylight in the Kharkiv region,” the governor said on his Telegram channel.
In addition, saying “appreciate the efforts” of Berlin to help kyiv militarily, the Ukrainian Minister of Defense, Oleksiï Reznikov, announced the reception of German self-propelled artillery guns Panzerhaubitze 2000.
Several cities in Donbass still under the control of kyiv are preparing for a new advance by Russian troops, such as Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, east of Severodonetsk. “The front has come closer in recent weeks, up to 15-20 kilometers”, explained to AFP Vadym Lyakh, mayor of Sloviansk, who hopes for the rapid arrival of “new weapons” including the Ukrainian army. requires.
Still on the military level, Russia claimed to have repelled a “crazy” attempt by kyiv’s forces to retake Serpents’ Island, a symbolic and strategic territory conquered by Moscow in the Black Sea at the start of its offensive in Ukraine, launched on 24 last February.
Ukraine said on Tuesday that it had targeted hydrocarbon drilling platforms in the Black Sea the day before, which it said were used as military “installations” by the Russians to strengthen their control in the region.
Russification
“We are proud that[en Ukraine], our fighters act with courage, professionalism, like real heroes,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a speech in the Kremlin to young graduates of Russian military academies and the highest army officials. Mr Putin also said he was “sure” that the sanctions against Russia will be “overcome”.
In southern Ukraine, “specialists from the transmission units of the Russian Armed Forces have connected and reconfigured to broadcast Russian channels the last of the seven television transmitters in the Kherson region”, conquered by Moscow from the first days of the war, according to a statement from the Russian Defense Ministry.
According to the text, one million inhabitants of the region now have “free” access to the main Russian channels, in particular those of the public audiovisual group VGTRK, which actively relays the Kremlin line.
Since the region came under the control of Moscow, the occupying forces have been carrying out a policy of Russification of the territories there: the Russian currency, the rouble, has been introduced and Russian passports are beginning to be distributed.