War in Ukraine | Russian forces have “the upper hand” in the east

Ukrainian officials say ‘maximum intensity’ military offensive has been raging for the past few days

Nicolas Berube
The Press

Russian advances in eastern Ukraine

The Russian army has made advances in eastern Ukraine over the past few days, capturing the town of Lyman, the location of an important railway junction, where the Russian flag was hoisted on the destroyed administrative center of the city. “It is clear that our guys are slowly retreating to more fortified positions – we have to hold off this horde,” said the Guardian Serhiy Haidai, governor of the Luhansk region. Hinting at further withdrawals, he said there was a possibility of more troops withdrawing. “We must win the war, not the battle,” he added. The Ukrainian government on Thursday described a Russian military offensive of “maximum intensity” and an extremely difficult situation in the east of its territory. On Thursday, General Oleksiy Gromov, a senior Ukrainian military official, said in a press briefing that Russia had the advantage in the fighting in the Luhansk region. “Russia has the upper hand, but we are doing everything we can,” he said.

Nine civilians dead in Kharkiv

Nine people died on Wednesday in new Russian bombardments on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, which had begun a return to normal life in mid-May, the governor of the region of the same name, Oleg Sinegoubov, said on Thursday on Telegram social network. “Russian shelling on Kharkiv killed nine civilians,” Sinegoubov said. “A 5-month-old baby died, as did his father. The mother is seriously injured and 19 civilians were injured. Several residential areas were bombed, with widespread destruction of buildings, according to AFP.

National Audience

Many European countries, including France and Italy, have called for a peace process in which Ukraine should cede territory to Russia. If Western countries talk about diplomacy to end the war, it is primarily for their national audience, believes Michel Fortmann, honorary professor in the political science department at the Université de Montréal and researcher at the Center d’études et of international research (CERIUM). “They want to show that they are open to negotiation, but that remains more symbolic than anything else. It’s because it’s very difficult for these heads of state to tell their citizens that the war is going to be long, even if, in my opinion, that’s what we’re heading towards. The war in Ukraine is a “pure and simple war of aggression”, he says. “Russia has no legitimacy to lead it, the Russians have no legitimacy to be where they are. There is no compromise on this. »

Azov Battalion: Silence in Russia

The more than 2,000 fighters from the Azov Battalion who holed up in the huge Azovstal factory in Mariupol and who surrendered to the Russian army last week have not appeared in the Russian media since. This silence leads Yakov M. Rabkin, professor emeritus in the history department of the University of Montreal, to believe that an exchange of prisoners with Ukraine may be in the process of being negotiated. “We know that foreign fighters must have been among them. However, since the surrender, we have no information about foreigners, I check it every day. I speculate that there may be something going on. On Wednesday, Ekaterina Prokopenko, whose husband, Denys Prokopenko, is a fighter detained by Russia, told the Guardian having received a brief phone call from him in which he said that the captive fighters were “fed and treated properly” and that he had so far not been subjected to violence or torture.

Mariupol schoolchildren deprived of vacation

Russian forces who took control of Mariupol in southern Ukraine have decided to scrap summer school vacations to prepare students for the Russian curriculum, a Ukrainian official in the city said Thursday. According to Petro Andryushchenko, advisor to the mayor, “the occupiers have announced the extension of the school year until 1^er september “. Throughout the summer, children will have lessons in Russian language and literature, Russian history and mathematics lessons in Russian. “The main goal is de-Ukrainization and preparation for the start of the school year according to the Russian curriculum,” he denounced.

With Agence France-Presse