Russia urged to annex region
PRO-KREMLIN authorities in Ukraine’s Kherson said yesterday they would ask Russia to annex the region as Moscow seeks to shore up its gains in the increasingly drawn-out and bloody war.
Gas supplies to energy-starved Europe were also disrupted by a halt in Russian supplies flowing through Ukraine as the international shockwaves of the February 24 invasion continued. The developments came as Ukraine said it was pushing Russian troops away from the country’s second city Kharkiv in the north-east but facing stiff resistance from the invading forces.
Russia has focused on eastern and southern Ukraine since it failed to take Kyiv in the first weeks after the February 24 invasion, and US intelligence has warned Putin is ready for a long war.
Kherson, the first major Ukrainian city to fall after the Russian invasion of its pro-Western neighbour, is north of Crimea, which itself was annexed by Moscow in 2014 after an internationally-condemned vote.
Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of Kherson’s Moscow-installed civilian and military administration, said there would be a “request to make Kherson region a full subject of the Russian Federation”.
Stremousov suggested the authorities would appeal directly to Putin without putting the move to a vote. But the Kremlin replied that it was up to the residents of Kherson to “determine their own fate”.
Kherson is just north of Crimea and essential for its water supplies. But Russia also appears set on creating a land bridge to Crimea from its own territory, with US intelligence suggesting it wants to go all the way across the southern coast to Moldova.
On the battlefield, Ukraine’s forces were boosted by what Kyiv says is the recapture of four villages around Kharkiv
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that he had “good news” from Kharkiv and praised the “superhuman strength” of Ukrainian defenders.
Ukraine’s general staff of the armed forces said yesterday that “occupiers continue to focus their efforts on preventing the further advance of our troops towards the state border of Ukraine” from Kharkiv.
But Ukraine is engaged in what appears to be an increasingly desperate effort to hold the Russian-speaking Donbas region in the east.
“They come in waves,” volunteer fighter Mykola said of the Russians’ repeated attempts to push south past a strategic river near a rural settlement called Bilogorivka.
US director of National Intelligence Avril Haines on Tuesday said Putin was “preparing for prolonged conflict” and “still intends to achieve goals beyond the Donbas”.
The war in Ukraine has also fuelled Europe’s growing energy crisis, with Kyiv pressing for an embargo on oil and gas imports from Russia.
Ukraine yesterday said Russia had halted gas supplies through a key transit hub in the east of the country, a day after the Ukrainian state energy company Naftogaz said it was no longer responsible for gas coming through Russian-occupied territory.
Germany said inflows of Russian gas had as a result fallen by a quarter compared to a day before, although it was getting extra supplies from Norway and the Netherlands.
Germany is highly dependent on Russia for its gas supplies and has rejected an immediate full embargo on Russian gas, although it backs a halt on Russian oil that the EU is seeking.
Ukraine has been pushing Western countries for more support on all fronts, with Washington the latest to step up.
As President Joe Biden warned that Ukraine would within days likely run out of funds to keep fighting, the US House of Representatives voted on Tuesday to send a $40 billion (about R642bn) aid package to the country.
The US views it as increasingly likely that Putin will mobilise his entire country, including ordering martial law, and is counting on his perseverance to wear down Western support for Ukraine.
As Russia cracks down internally, a member of the band Pussy Riot, Maria Alyokhina, said she had left Russia by disguising herself as a food delivery courier to escape police.
One of the key symbols of Ukrainian resistance has been the strategic port of Mariupol, where Ukraine says around 1 000 troops remain trapped in increasingly dire circumstances at the Azovstal steelworks.
The sprawling plant is the final bastion of Ukraine’s defiance in the devastated city, over which Russia now has almost complete control.
A sister plant of the Azovstal mill in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia has highlighted how the Mariupol facility has proven key to the Ukrainian resistance to the numerically superior Russian force.
“We can stay in the shelters for a long time,” said Zaporizhstal employee Ihor Buhlayev, 20, in his hooded silver safety gear as molten metal flowed and sparked behind him. “I think it will give us the chance to survive.”
Meanwhile, wary of provoking Russia’s ire over possible Nato bids, Finland and Sweden have spent recent weeks seeking assurances from Nato members that they would be protected while awaiting full membership.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has swung opinion in Finland and Sweden in favour of membership of the Western military alliance, after decades of military non-alignment.
All signs point to a joint application, with the talks in recent weeks centred on obtaining crucial security assurances, in particular from Nato’s most powerful members, according to Swedish and Finnish leaders.
The application process requires lawmakers in all 30 Nato members to ratify a country’s membership bid, a procedure which can take months or even up to a year. During this period, candidate countries are not covered by Nato’s Article 5 mutual defence agreement.
Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said he is “certain that we will be able to find arrangements” to help protect the two hopefuls.
In the case of Sweden, he said a “heightened presence of Nato and Nato forces around Sweden and the Baltic Sea” was a possibility.
“If Sweden were attacked and looked to us for support then we would provide it,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said yesterday after signing a Political Declaration of Solidarity, including military means, with his Swedish counterpart Magdalena Andersson. He was to sign a similar agreement in Helsinki.