War in Ukraine, Day 61 | Meeting to arm Ukraine, Moscow warns of a world war

(Kyiv) The United States is meeting in Germany on Tuesday forty allied countries to further arm Ukraine against the Russian invader, who has warned of a “real” risk of World War III.

While the war in Ukraine is generating unprecedented tensions between Russia and the West, the head of Russian diplomacy Sergey Lavrov has raised the threat of an extension of the conflict which could degenerate into world war.

“The danger is serious, it is real, it cannot be underestimated”, he said, quoted by the Interfax agency, the day after a visit to Ukraine by American officials of foreign affairs and the defense, Antony Blinken and Lloyd Austin.

Mr. Austin meets Tuesday, on the American base of Ramstein in Germany, the representatives of forty countries to “generate additional capacities for the Ukrainian forces”, according to the head of the Pentagon.

“They can win if they have the right equipment, the right support,” Austin said.

President Zelensky said that the Ukrainian victory was only a matter of time.

“Fight for freedom”

“Thanks to the courage, the wisdom of our defenders, thanks to the courage of all Ukrainians, all Ukrainian women – our state is a true symbol of the struggle for freedom,” he trumpeted in his Monday address. evening.

The United States on Monday announced new military aid for Ukraine of $700 million, bringing its assistance to $3.4 billion.

They are now supplying heavy weapons to counter Russian forces concentrating on eastern and southern Ukraine, after failing to capture Kyiv.

Mr Austin said he wanted “to see Russia weakened to such a degree that it can no longer do the same kinds of things as the invasion of Ukraine”.

According to British Defense Minister Ben Wallace, Moscow has so far lost “approximately 15,000 men” in Ukraine, a figure that cannot be verified by independent sources. Moscow has given no assessment since March 25, when it claimed to have lost 1,351 soldiers.

The Russian military said it struck around 100 targets in Ukraine on Monday, including railway installations in the center of the country.

For its part, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense indicated that the Russian army continued to strengthen its anti-aircraft defenses, to reconstitute the losses linked to the previous offensive and to bombard infrastructures.

According to the same source, the Russian army is regrouping its forces in the south and tried to advance towards Zaporozhzhya (east), but suffered losses and failed.

Russia is displaying its objective of seizing all of Donbass, a large industrial basin in the east – which pro-Russian separatists have partially controlled since 2014 – and taking full control of southern Ukraine, where the fighting is also dailies.

Azovstal still pounded

The situation seems blocked in the strategic port of Mariupol, at the southern tip of Donbass, almost entirely controlled by the Russians but where some 100,000 civilians are still stuck according to Kyiv.

Russian forces continue to shell the vast Azovstal metallurgical complex there, where the last Ukrainian fighters are entrenched with, according to them, nearly 1,000 civilians, said Tuesday at dawn on Facebook the Ukrainian military commander of Donetsk, Pavlo Kirilenko.

“The shelling continues constantly, with heavy artillery and aviation,” he said. “We can only rely on our own strength,” he added.

In the rest of Donbass, the Ukrainian army said on Monday that it had repelled a series of Russian attacks in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, where many localities, like Roubijné, are daily under bombs.

Moscow accused Kyiv of preventing civilians from leaving Azovstal. But Ukraine says no agreement on humanitarian corridors that would allow them to be evacuated has been reached with Russia.

Sleep underground

Fighting also continues in the Kharkiv region, in the northeast, with a “partial encirclement” of the second city of the country, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. The bombardments have forced civilians to sleep underground for weeks.

“It was scary the first week after we got used to it,” said 14-year-old Alex, who sleeps with his family in an underground parking lot.

“On weekdays, in the morning, I go home to do my homework, then I come back here for lunch, to play games, cards, on the phone,” he said. “Our parents don’t tell us the details of the war” but “we know the war is going on”.

Guterres in Moscow

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres is expected in Moscow on Tuesday after visiting Turkey on Monday, a country that is trying to mediate in the conflict. He must then go to Kyiv.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is also due to speak on the phone Tuesday with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Russian news agency Ria Novosti said, quoting Kremlin spokesman Dimitri Peskov.

Ankara is currently trying to organize a summit in Istanbul between MM. Putin and Zelensky, although Turkish officials admit that the prospects for such talks currently remain dim.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said he wanted to continue negotiations with Ukraine, but accused President Zelensky of “pretending” to discuss with Moscow.

“He’s a good actor. […]if you look carefully and read carefully what he says, you will find a thousand contradictions,” Lavrov said.

But “we continue to conduct negotiations with the ‘Ukrainian’ team and these contacts will continue”, he added.

The conflict has destroyed all cooperation between Russia and the West, who chain sanctions and expulsions of their respective diplomats. On Monday, Moscow announced the expulsion of 40 German diplomats, in retaliation for a similar measure recently taken by Berlin.

And the UK announced the abolition of all tariffs and quotas on imports of Ukrainian goods, to “support Ukraine’s fight against Putin’s brutal and unprovoked invasion”, the secretary said. British International Trade, Anne-Marie Trevelyan.