Russia escalates attacks
FOCUS ON EAST: BIDEN MOVES TO SPEED UP WEAPONS DELIVERIES
Lifting blocks on sending artillery, anti-aircraft missiles, anti-tank weapons.
Russian forces intensified their fight in Ukraine’s east and fired missiles over the port city of Odessa, as President Joe Biden signed a law speeding up arms deliveries to Kyiv.
The southern city was hit by a series of missiles on Monday, destroying buildings, setting ablaze a shopping centre and killing one person, its city council said, just hours after a visit by European Council president Charles Michel.
As Russia stepped up its fight to seize Ukraine’s east, Biden resurrected a World War II measure to aid Kyiv, opening the spigots on artillery, anti-aircraft missiles, anti-tank weapons and other powerful Western material.
The US has sent about $4 billion (about R64.4 billion) in military aid to Ukraine already but “caving to aggression is even more costly”, Biden said as he signed the Act, passed with unusual bipartisan support.
Missiles earlier rumbled through Moscow’s Red Square as Russia’s President Vladimir Putin sought to channel national pride on the anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany into support for a war that has killed thousands and sent millions into exile.
On the ground in Ukraine, the governor of Lugansk reported “very serious battles” in the frontline areas of Bilogorivka and Rubizhne.
An AFP team reported seeing columns of trucks filled with soldiers and heavy equipment move down the main road leading away from the city of Severodonetsk – one of its last eastern strongholds against Russia – suggesting Ukraine was pulling back from some parts of the front.
In the devastated southern port of Mariupol, pro-Russian separatists feted Victory Day, with leader Denis Pushilin and residents carrying a giant black and orange ribbon of Saint George – a symbol of WWII celebrations in Russia – through a city that has seen some of the heaviest fighting since the invasion on 24 February.
Full control of Mariupol would allow Moscow to create a land bridge between the Crimean peninsula, which it annexed in 2014, and eastern regions run by pro-Russian separatists.
Some have speculated that Putin was seeking to achieve that goal in time for Victory Day, but a small contingent of depleted Ukrainian forces continued their defence of a final bastion at the Azovstal steelworks.
In his speech in Moscow, the Russian leader blamed the West and Ukraine for the two-and-ahalf-month conflict, telling the parade that his country faced an “absolutely unacceptable threat” and warning against the “horror of a global war”.
“You are fighting for the Motherland, for its future, so that no one forgets the lessons of World War II,” he said.
The celebration in Red Square also featured about 11 000 troops and more than 130 military vehicles.
Ukrainians and Western powers accused Putin of exploiting the anniversary, with protesters in Warsaw tossing red paint on the Russian ambassador, chanting “fascists!” and hoisting a Ukrainian flag, as he visited a cemetery.
Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky also invoked the ghosts of World War II, chiding Russia for claiming sole credit for winning.
“We will not allow anyone to annex this victory. We will not allow it to be appropriated,” he said.
The Pentagon said Monday it has seen indications that those caught up in Russia’s invasion are being forcibly removed from their homeland.
“I can’t speak to how many camps or what they look like,” Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said when asked about statements from Kyiv that about 1.2 million Ukrainians were being sent across the border into camps. “But we do have indications that Ukrainians are being taken against their will into Russia.”