Russian forces seized much of the strategic city of Severodonetsk on Tuesday as they advanced through eastern Ukraine, and are accused of “madness” by Ukraine’s president for bombing a chemical plant.
Diplomatically, kyiv won a battle with a European agreement on a gradual embargo on Russian oil.
“Given the presence of large-scale chemical production in Severodonetsk, the strikes of the Russian army in this city, with indiscriminate aerial bombardments, are simply crazy,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thundered in a message. Tuesday night video.
“But on the 97th day of such a war, it is no longer surprising that for the Russian military, for the Russian commanders, for the Russian soldiers, any madness is absolutely acceptable,” he added.
A few hours earlier, the governor of the Lungask region, Serguiï Gaïdaï, had indicated that a “nitric acid tank” at a chemical plant in Severodonetsk had been “hit” by a Russian strike. “Do not leave the shelters” and “prepare face masks soaked in a soda solution”, wrote the governor on Telegram, to the address of the civilians still holed up in the shelters.
Russian forces aim to control the entire Donbass mining basin, which pro-Russian separatist forces, backed by Moscow, took partial control of in 2014.
The city of Severodonetsk, together with the neighboring city of Lyssytchansk, located some 80 km from the regional administrative capital of Kramatorsk, is a key agglomeration to achieve this.
It was in this area that a French journalist from the BFMTV channel, Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff, who was accompanying a humanitarian vehicle which was evacuating civilians, was killed on Monday.
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 Severodonetsk and the surrounding region, “the intensification of the fighting now makes distributions impossible”, indicated its secretary general Jan Egeland in a statement.
In addition, Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk region, indicated on Telegram that four civilians had been killed and seven injured by fire from Russian forces in his region.
Unblock Ukrainian ports
Currently, even a temporary ceasefire seems 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 hundreds 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 by telephone 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 Kremlin statement.
The European Union (EU) is also seeking 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, the first Ukrainian port.
Oil embargo, but not gas
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, i.e. two-thirds of European purchases of Russian black gold, and not that transported by pipeline. , which made it possible to lift Budapest’s veto.
“This will cut off a huge source of funding for Russia’s war machine,” European Council President Charles Michel said in a tweet.
Tonight #EUCO agreed to a sixth package of sanctions.
It will allow a ban on oil imports from #Russia.
The sanctions will immediately impact 75% of Russian oil imports. And by the end of the year, 90% of the Russian oil imported into Europe will be banned. pic.twitter.com/uVoVI519v8
— Charles Michel (@eucopresident) May 30, 2022
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.
The Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, had questioned by videoconference, at the start of the summit, the Europeans on their need to stand up against Russia and to 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.
The Ukrainians are also calling for an embargo on Russian gas, which promises to be much more difficult to obtain, because alternative sources of supply are more complicated to find. 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.
“Gas should be part of the seventh package [de sanctions]but I’m also realistic, I don’t think he will be there,” said Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas.
However, Russia has already cut off the gas tap to certain European countries which refused to pay it in roubles: the Russian gas giant Gazprom has announced that it will immediately suspend its deliveries to the Dutch GasTerra, partly belonging to the Dutch State, while the group Danish energy company Orsted said its deliveries would be cut on Wednesday.
New sentencing of Russian soldiers
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.