Tensions as ‘Victory Day’ to be marked by Russia
US president Joe Biden and other Western leaders plan to hold a video call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky tomorrow, the White House said, in a show of unity before Russia marks Victory Day on Monday. Biden is also expected to sign a new weapons package worth at least $100 million for Ukraine, according to US officials.
Ukraine and its western allies say that after failing to seize the capital, Russian forces have made slow progress in their revised aim of capturing the country’s east and south, but may also plan to involve Ukraine’s western neighbour, Moldova.
Kyiv and Moscow have blamed each other for recent mysterious blasts in a pro-Russian breakaway part.
The most severe sanctions ever imposed on a major power have impaired Russia’s €1.7 trillion economy and the European Union has proposed more.
But that new package, which includes an oil embargo, has run into some opposition, with Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban likening that to an ‘atomic bomb’ dropped on the economy.
The European Commission has proposed giving Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic more time to adapt to the embargo, three EU
‘Putin doesn’t have a victory to announce’
sources told Reuters.
According to Western officials, Russia’s tactic is to bombard urban areas before its ground troops try to advance.
The mayor of Kyiv, former boxer Vitali Klitschko, and his counterpart in the western city of Ivano-Frankivsk, Ruslan Martsinkiv, have cancelled official events, and told people not to gather in public spaces but to leave town.
They fear Russia will step up its offensive before Monday, when Moscow commemorates the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in 1945.
Vladimir Putin has likened the war in Ukraine to the challenge faced by the Soviet Union when Hitler’s forces invaded in 1941.
Previous Victory Days have brought Russia and former Soviet states such as Ukraine together, but this year will be different, say Western officials. One said: ‘The messaging from Putin will likely be defensive, because he doesn’t have a victory to announce.’