Russian forces bent on securing Donbas region
Kyiv, Ukraine - Russian forces pursued their bombardment of frontline Ukrainian cities on Sunday, seeking to gain military momentum as Kyiv’s diplomatic counter-offensive targeted the world’s business and political elite gathering in Davos.
Shelling and missile strikes hit Kharkiv in the north, and Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia in the south, while eight civilians were killed on the eastern front in the Donbas, Ukrainian officials said.
Three months after launching their invasion, Moscow’s forces are focused on securing and expanding their gains in the Donbas region and on Ukraine’s southern coast. Ukraine’s parliament voted on Sunday to extend martial law for a further three months through to August 23.
Kyiv, meanwhile, is rallying international support and receiving Western weapons supplies, even if EU powers are struggling to agree on expanding sanctions to Russia’s huge energy exports.
Poland’s President Andrzej Duda was to address the Ukrainian parliament and meet President Volodymyr Zelensky later on Sunday, a day ahead of the Ukrainian leader’s Davos videoconference.
“He will in particular pay homage to those who, in defending Ukraine, are fighting to defend Europe,” Duda’s adviser Jakub Kumoch told the news agency PAP. The World Economic Forum brings together the world’s business and political elite in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos, and this year’s gathering will put Ukraine’s crisis centre stage.
Davos snubs Moscow
Zelensky is due to hold a videoconference with delegates on Monday evening to mark the opening of Ukraine House Davos, a forum for Kyiv and its international backers.
In March, Davos organisers cut ties with Russian firms and officials, and announced that anyone under international sanctions would not be welcome at the event. Western nations have rallied behind Ukraine’s defence of its territories, led by the United States - which just approved a US$40bn war chest for Kyiv - and neighbours such as Poland.
But some European countries that are dependent on Russian oil supplies, including Hungary, are resisting calls for an embargo on crude - and major EU economic powers like Germany remain huge gas importers.
The European Union is also reticent on Kyiv’s ambitions to join the bloc. France’s President Emmanuel Macron has suggested creating a ‘European political community’ as a kind of antechamber to full membership.