The Hamilton Spectator

West says Russians losing momentum

‘Ukraine can win this war,’ says top NATO official, as Russia fails to make territoria­l gains

- OLEKSANDR STASHEVSKY­I AND CIARAN MCQUILLAN

Almost three months after Russia shocked the world by invading Ukraine, its military faces a bogged-down war, the prospect of a bigger NATO and an opponent buoyed Sunday by wins on and off the battlefiel­d.

Top diplomats from NATO met in Berlin with the alliance’s chief and declared that the war “is not going as Moscow had planned.”

“Ukraine can win this war,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenber­g said, adding that the alliance must continue to offer military support to Kyiv.

On the diplomatic front, both Finland and Sweden took steps bringing them closer to NATO membership despite Russian objections. Finland announced Sunday it was seeking to join NATO, citing how the invasion had changed Europe’s security landscape. Several hours later, Sweden’s governing party endorsed the country’s own bid for membership, which could lead to an applicatio­n in days.

If the two nonaligned Nordic nations become part of the alliance, it would represent an affront to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has cited NATO’s post-Cold War expansion in eastern Europe as a threat to Russia. While Moscow lost ground on the diplomatic front, Russian forces also failed to make territoria­l gains in eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine said it held off Russian offensives Sunday in the east, and western military officials said the campaign Moscow launched there after its forces failed to seize the capital of Kyiv has slowed to a snail’s pace.

Ukraine, meanwhile, celebrated a morale-boosting victory in the Eurovision Song Contest. The folk-rap ensemble Kalush Orchestra won the glitzy pan-European competitio­n with its song “Stefania,” which has become a popular anthem among Ukrainians during the war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed that his nation would claim the customary winner’s honour of hosting the next annual competitio­n.

“Step by step, we are forcing the occupiers to leave the Ukrainian land,” Zelenskyy said.

The band’s frontman, Oleh Psiuk, said at a news conference Sunday that the musicians were “ready to fight” when they return home.

Even with its setbacks, Russia continues to inflict death and destructio­n across Ukraine. Over the weekend, its forces hit a chemical plant and 11 high-rise buildings in Siverodone­tsk, in the Donbas, the regional governor said. Gov. Serhii Haidaii said two people were killed in the shelling and warned residents still in the city to stay in undergroun­d shelters.

The Ukrainian military said it held off a renewed Russian offensive in the Donetsk area of the Donbas. Russian troops also tried to advance near the eastern city of Izyum, but Ukrainian forces stopped them, the governor of Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, Oleh Sinegubov, reported.

The Ukrainian claims could not be independen­tly verified, but western officials also painted a somber picture for Russia.

Britain’s Defence Ministry said in its daily intelligen­ce update Sunday that the Russian army had lost up to one-third of the combat strength it committed to Ukraine in late February and was failing to gain any substantia­l territory.

‘‘ Step by step, we are forcing the occupiers to leave the Ukrainian land.

UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY

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