Ukraine loses control of two villages in east amid EU bid
The Russian military expanded its grab of territory in Ukraine’s Donbas after weeks of brutal fighting
KYIV/BRUSSELS: Ukraine said on Thursday that its troops lost control over two settlements in the eastern Donbas region even as European leaders prepared to formally accept Ukraine as a candidate to join the EU.
“We lost control over Loskutivka and Rai-Oleksandrivka,” said the Lugansk regional governor, Sergiy Gaiday, referring to two hamlets south east of Lysychansk.
Their capture puts Russian troops deeper in the Donbas region where they appear closer to encircling the two urban hubs of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk which are separated by the Donets river.
Gaiday added that Russian forces were working to capture Severodonetsk, an industrial town with a pre-war population of around 100,000 where Ukrainian and Russian troops have been fighting in a brutal standoff for weeks.
He said Moscow’s army was “conducting offensive operations to encircle our troops in the Lysychansk area, and are blocking the Lysychansk-Bakhmut route”, a key lifeline out of the embattled area.
“Severodonetsk is being destroyed, all positions of our forces are shelled around the clock,” he said.
The Russians are “storming Syrotyne”, he added, referring to a settlement directly adjacent to Severodonetsk’s southern edges.
Meanwhile, Ukraine on Thursday said it was “waiting for the green light” to receive EU candidacy status as European leaders met in Brussels to discuss Kyiv’s future, four months into the Russian invasion. It is a bold geopolitical move triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but a reminder that the 27-nadecision tion bloc will need a major overhaul as it looks to enlarge again.
Although it could take Ukraine and neighbouring Moldova more than a decade to qualify for membership, the twoday European Union summit
will be a symbolic step that signals the bloc’s intention to reach deep into the former Soviet Union.
“Today the EU is sending a message of solidarity to the people of Ukraine that you belong to the European family, that you belong to the EU,” Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin said on arrival for the summit.
A draft of the summit statement showed that EU leaders will again give “full and unequivocal commitment to the EU membership perspective of the Western Balkans”.
The step will kick-start the EU’s most ambitious expansion since welcoming Eastern European states after the Cold War.
Russian President Vladimir Putin says his “special military operation” launched in Ukraine in late February was partly necessitated by Western
encroachment into what Russia characterises as its rightful geographical sphere of influence.
On Thursday, Russia said it is ready to agree to a peace deal with Ukraine if it accepts all of Moscow’s demands, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman said.
“As far as the peace plan is concerned, it’s only possible after Ukraine fulfils all the conditions of the Russian side,” Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call on Thursday, Interfax reported.
Negotiations between Russia and Ukraine on a cease-fire and
peace deal have been effectively frozen since April. In addition to
demanding that Kyiv give up its ambitions to join Nato and declare its neutrality, Russia wants to keep territory it’s captured since its February invasion of the neighbouring state.