Russia under fire in Donbas and at sea Gas supply crisis grows
KHARKIV: Ukrainian forces destroyed a pontoon bridge and parts of a Russian armoured column as it tried to cross a river in the Donbas region, video footage released by Ukraine’s military showed yesterday, and a Russian naval ship was set on fire in the Black Sea.
Russia has suffered setbacks on the battlefield as Ukraine drove its troops out of the region around the secondlargest city of Kharkiv, the fastest advance since forcing the Kremlin’s forces from Kyiv and the northeast more than a month ago.
Reporters have confirmed Ukraine was in control of territory stretching to the banks of the Siverskiy Donets River, about 40km east of Kharkiv.
Footage released by Ukrainian Airborne Forces Command appeared to show several burnt out military vehicles and segments of a bridge partially submerged in the river. The images showed many more damaged or abandoned vehicles, including tanks, in the woods and on the track leading to the river.
Delivering a daily intelligence update yesterday, Britain’s defence ministry said the images suggested that Russia had lost armoured manoeuvre elements of at least one battalion tactical group and the pontoon bridging equipment deployed while crossing the Siverskyi Donets River west of Severodonetsk.
The British defence ministry said Russia was investing significant military effort further south from Kharkiv, near Izyum and Severodonetsk, and was attempting a breakthrough towards Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.
In the capital Kyiv, wives and relatives of Ukrainian fighters holed up in the Azovstal steel plant in the southern port of
Mariupol marched and chanted for their rescue.
Russian forces have been bombarding the steelworks, the last bastion of Ukrainian defenders in a city almost completely controlled by Russia after a siege of more than two months.
Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on TV negotiations were under way for an evacuation, starting with the most badly wounded.
In Kyiv, a court was due yesterday to begin hearing the first war crime case since the war began in February. A Russian soldier was due to go on trial accused of murdering a civilian in Chupakhivka on February 28.
Renewed fighting around Snake Island in recent days may become a battle for control of the western Black Sea coast.
Ukraine said it had damaged a Russian navy logistics ship near the island, a small but strategic outpost, and set it on fire.
‘‘Thanks to the actions of our naval seamen, the support vessel Vsevolod Bobrov caught fire — it is one of the newest in the
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Russian fleet,’’ Serhiy Bratchuk, of the Odesa regional military administration said.
Satellite imagery showed the aftermath of probable missile attacks on a Russian Sernaclass landing craft near the island, close to the sea border with Romania. — Reuters
BERLIN: Pressure on Europe to secure alternative gas supplies increased yesterday as Moscow imposed sanctions on European subsidiaries of stateowned Gazprom a day after Ukraine stopped a major gas transit route.
Gas prices surged, with the key European benchmark gaining 12% as buyers were unsettled by the mounting threats to Europe’s supply given its high dependence on Russia.
Moscow has already cut off supply to Bulgaria and Poland and countries are racing to fill dwindling gas reserves before winter.
Russia imposed sanctions early on Thursday mainly on Gazprom’s European subsidiaries including Gazprom Germania, an energy trading, storage and transmission business that Germany placed under trusteeship last month to secure supplies.
It also placed sanctions on the owner of the Polish part of the YamalEurope pipeline taking Russian gas to Europe.
Affected entities are largely EUbased. — Reuters