KYIV — A provincial governor reported that Ukrainian forces fought on Saturday to stop Russian military advances into the eastern region of Donbas as Ukraine pleaded with its allies to send it more weapons.
President Vladimir Putin stated that sanctions against Russia for the invasion it started in February run the risk of causing “catastrophic” increases in energy prices, sending a message that the Kremlin was not in the mood for negotiations.
At a G20 summit in Indonesia, where they urged Russia to permit Ukraine to ship its blockaded grain out to a hungry world, his top diplomat, Sergei Lavrov, clashed with his Western counterparts.
Meanwhile, the Russian ambassador to Britain offered scant hope for a Russian withdrawal from the regions of Ukraine it controls.
According to Russian ambassador Andrei Kelin, who spoke to Reuters, Russian troops would likely continue capturing territory in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas and were unlikely to leave the southern coast.
He predicted that either a peace agreement would be reached or Ukraine would “continue slipping down this hill” and into ruin.
As Russian forces attacked from multiple sides, Ukrainian officials on the front lines in the east reported heavy Russian shelling of towns and villages.
Serhiy Gaidai, the governor of the Luhansk region, posted on the Telegram messaging app, “Russians are firing along the entire front line.”
The enemy is attempting to move forward from the Luhansk region’s settlements to the first villages in the Donetsk region.
For two self-declared people’s republics backed by Moscow, Russia claims it wants to seize control of the entire Donbas, the eastern industrial heartland made up of the provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk.
Following its capture of Lysychansk last Sunday, which effectively cemented its hold on Luhansk, Russia has made it clear that it intends to annexe some of the surrounding region.
After their recent advances in the east, Gaidai claimed that Russian forces had not stopped. They continue to attack and bombard our lands with the same ferocity.
Additionally, a sizable portion of land in the south of Ukraine has been taken over by Russia.
The deputy prime minister of Ukraine urged people to leave the Russian-occupied areas of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in the south before Ukrainian forces launched a counteroffensive.
Our army will start retaking these areas, so kindly depart. Iryna Vereshchuk was quoted as saying in Ukrainian media, “Our resolve is rock solid.
According to military sources cited by Ukrainian media, 194 Russian soldiers were “eliminated” in the south over the course of the previous 24 hours.
Reuters was unable to independently confirm any battlefield reports.
“LONG-TERM CONFLICT”
The chief Ukrainian negotiator in the deadlocked negotiations with Moscow, Mykhailo Podolyak, had earlier claimed that the Russian military had been forced to halt operations due to losses and to resupply.
“It is obvious that they must redistribute resources, send in new troops, and this is excellent. We are demonstrating that we will attack storage facilities and command centers, so a turning point is starting to form,” Podolyak told Ukraine’s 24 Channel television.
Russia was assembling its reserve forces near Ukraine, according to a regular bulletin from the British Ministry of Defense.
With a forced partition, Russia’s potential endgame would deprive its former Soviet neighbor of more than a fifth of its post-Soviet territory, as revealed by Ambassador Kelin’s remarks.
According to Ukrainian officials, their defenses needed to be strengthened with more advanced Western weapons.
On Friday, U.S. President Joe Biden approved a new arms deal with Ukraine worth up to $400 million, which included four more high mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS), as well as more ammunition.
Zelenskiy thanked Biden for the HIMARS and shells on Twitter, claiming that they were urgent needs.
The Russian embassy in Washington made a statement regarding the supply of weapons, claiming that the US wanted to “prolong the conflict at all costs” and make up for Ukrainian military losses.
After receiving guarantees that Ukraine wouldn’t use the precision rocket weapon system to strike targets in Russia, the United States began supplying it to Ukraine last month. Kyiv has credited the HIMARS for its military victories.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken led efforts to press Russia at the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting. It was anticipated that he would reiterate his warnings to Beijing not to support Russia’s war when he met with Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, on Saturday.
Lavrov left a meeting on Friday after criticizing the West for its “frenzied criticism.”
Getting grain shipments from Ukraine out through ports barred by Russia’s presence in the Black Sea and mines is high on the list of G20 concerns. Aid organizations caution that many developing nations may experience food shortages if supplies do not reach them because Ukraine is a significant exporter.
According to a Western official, Blinken begged Russia to let Ukrainian grain leave.
Numerous cities have been bombed to the point of collapse, thousands of people have died, and millions have been displaced since Russia launched what it refers to as a special operation to demilitarize Ukraine in February.
