War in Ukraine, day 81 | Russia continues its bombardments in the East

(Kyiv) NATO countries will continue to help Ukraine militarily, still under pressure from Russian bombing, Berlin assured on Sunday, as Finland announced its candidacy for the Atlantic Alliance, hailing a “historic day” .

Russian forces meanwhile are trying to advance in the strategic region of Donbass in eastern Ukraine, partly controlled by pro-Russian separatists since 2014 and which Moscow has made its main objective since the withdrawal of its troops. around Kyiv at the end of March.

But they are struggling in the face of fierce resistance from Ukrainian forces. The latter, who are counter-attacking in the Kharkiv region (north), are close to reaching the border with Russia, Ukrainian interior ministry adviser Vadim Denissenko told Ukrainian television.

Following a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Berlin, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said that individual Alliance countries would not let up on their efforts ” particularly in terms of military assistance” to Ukraine.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kouleba, who met his American counterpart Antony Blinken on Saturday in Berlin, welcomed the “precedent” set by Germany’s decision to supply the first heavy weapons to Kyiv, in a video published Sunday on his Facebook account.

“The day I arrived in Berlin, there was training for Ukrainian soldiers in the use of German 155mm self-propelled artillery,” Kouleba said. “Soon these self-propelled Howitzers will strike the enemy. A precedent has been set. The psychological barrier [à la fourniture d’armes lourdes à l’Ukraine] has been overcome”.

After decades outside of military alliances, Finland had announced hours earlier that it would formally apply to join NATO, ahead of a landmark meeting in neighboring Sweden over a likely simultaneous application by the two countries. , a direct consequence of the Russian invasion of Ukraine launched on February 24.

“It is a historic day. A new era is dawning,” said Finnish President Sauli Niinistö, whose country shares a 1,300 kilometer border with Russia. He had called Vladimir Putin on Saturday to inform him of this decision, which the Russian president described as a “mistake”.

Moscow had previously threatened “military-technical” reprisals, without specifying which ones, and, overnight from Friday to Saturday, had stopped supplying electricity to Finland – around 10% of the consumption of the Nordic country.

In Sweden, the leadership of the ruling Social Democratic Party approved a candidacy for NATO on Sunday evening – a historic reversal for this formation. Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson then felt that a joint candidacy with Finland was “best for Sweden” and its security.

These candidacies are proof “that aggression does not pay”, judged the Secretary General of the Atlantic Alliance Jens Stoltenberg, assuring that NATO is ready to strengthen the “security guarantees” for these two countries.

He also said he was “confident” in the possibility for the countries of the Alliance to find a compromise with Turkey, which had expressed its hostility to the accession of Sweden and Finland.

“Lost momentum”

On the ground, four Russian missiles destroyed military installations in western Ukraine, in the Yavoriv district near the Polish border, without causing any casualties, the governor of the Lviv region, Maxim Lviv, announced on Sunday. Kozytsky, on Telegram.

Ukrainian forces also destroyed two cruise missiles over the Lviv region, largely untouched since the start of the Russian invasion, the governor added.

Moscow also announced that Russian “high precision” missiles had targeted two Ukrainian command points and four artillery ammunition depots overnight near Zaporijzhya, Paraskovievka, Konstantinovka and Novomikhaïlovka in the Donetsk region (east).

The Russian air force destroyed two missile launchers and a radar system in the region of Sumy, in the northeast. And Russian air defense systems destroyed 15 Ukrainian drones, according to Moscow.

But if Moscow is showing its successes, the British military intelligence services estimated on Sunday that the Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine had “lost momentum”.

According to them, Russia has suffered huge losses and is in serious danger of getting bogged down in its attempt to conquer the east of the country.

Moscow’s troops failed to make substantial territorial gains, putting their battle plan “significantly behind schedule”, according to these sources.

“Russia has now probably suffered losses of a third of the ground combat force it committed in February,” they added. “Under current conditions”, they consider it “unlikely” that Russia will “significantly accelerate its pace of progress” over the next month.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, however, stressed that the “situation in Donbass” remained “very difficult”, because “Russian troops are trying to achieve at least one victory there”.

Welcoming Ukraine’s victory in the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday night, he hoped that “in the battle against the enemy is not far away”, promising to organize “one day” Eurovision in a Mariupol “free, peaceful and rebuilt”, in reference to the martyr city of south-eastern Ukraine where the last Ukrainian fighters are entrenched in the Azovstal steelworks.

“We are preparing for major offensives in Severodonetsk, and around the Lyssytchansk-Bakhmut axis,” said Serguiï Gaïdaï, Ukrainian governor of the Luhansk region, which forms with that of Donetsk the Donbass mining basin, describing a situation increasingly critical humanitarianism.

Two civilians were killed in the night by shelling in Severodonetsk, but their bodies were not discovered until midday because of heavy fighting, according to Mr. Gaïdaï.

“The Luhansk region is constantly under chaotic fire […] there is absolutely no gas, water or electricity,” he described on Saturday evening.

The Russians have been trying in particular for three weeks, without success, to cross the Severskyi Donets river, at the level of the village of Bilogorivka.

“Azov was there”

In this almost deserted village, an AFP team saw the roads strewn with abandoned military equipment. Only three soot-covered corners remained of a school bombed a week ago, a strike that Kyiv touts as one of the most serious crimes committed by Russian forces since they began their invasion of Ukraine, with 60 civilians killed.

In Vilkhivka, another liberated village near Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city close to the Russian border, the scars of the violence of the fighting which saw the Ukrainians pushing the Russians towards their border and retaking villages occupied since beginning of the invasion are everywhere.

According to locals, the battle for the recapture of the village took place at the end of March, but the Ukrainian army prohibited access to the area until a few days ago.

Symbolically, the inscription “Azov was there”, with the symbol of the Ukrainian regiment resembling the Nazi swastika, was affixed to one of the tanks, next to the “Z” which had been painted there by the Russian troops.

Dozens of houses in this village of around 2,000 inhabitants were gutted by shells, explosions or fires. The streets are strewn with debris, bullet casings and other remnants of ammunition.

Kyiv claims its troops have killed nearly 20,000 Russian servicemen. On March 25, Moscow said its forces had killed at least 14,000 Ukrainian servicemen. But both figures are widely believed to be inflated and could not be verified by AFP or independent observers.