‘There is hell in Donbas’
‘BRUTAL’: RUSSIAN FORCES PREVENT CIVILIANS FROM FLEEING
The renewed Russian offensive in Ukraine’s Donbas has turned the eastern region into “hell”, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, as the US approved a gargantuan $40 billion (about R630 billion) aid package for the country.
After failing to take Kyiv, following the launch of the invasion in February, Russia has focused its attacks on the south and east of Ukraine, devastating towns and villages with artillery fire.
Moscow’s forces have been trying to take control of Donbas, a Russian-speaking area that has been partially controlled since 2014 by pro-Kremlin separatists.
“In Donbas, the occupiers are trying to increase pressure,” Zelensky said. “There’s hell and that’s not an exaggeration.”
The defence ministry in Kyiv said Russian forces were preventing civilians in Donbas from fleeing to Ukrainian-controlled territory.
In Severodonetsk, 12 people were killed and another 40 wounded when Russian forces shelled the eastern city, the regional governor said.
Severodonetsk and its sister city, Lysychansk, make up the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance in the smaller of the two regions comprising the Donbas war zone.
Russian forces have surrounded the two – split by a river marking a central front of the war – and
are bombarding them to try and wear down resistance and starve residents of supplies.
The residents still in the now ghostly city are afraid to take more than a few steps outside their front door.
Nella Kashkina sat in her basement next to an oil lamp and prayed. “I do not know how long we can last,” the 65 year old said.
“We have no medicine left and a lot of sick people – sick women – need medicine. There is simply no medicine left at all.”
Zelensky described the bombardment
of Severodonetsk as “brutal and absolutely pointless”.
Ukraine’s allies, led by the US and the European Union, have given billions of dollars in assistance – including military equipment – to Kyiv since the Russian invasion began in February.
The US Congress approved a weapons and aid package worth $40 billion and the White House said President Joe Biden would sign it during his trip to Asia.
The bundle includes $6 billion for Ukraine to enhance its armoured vehicle inventory and air
defence system.
Biden offered “full, total, complete backing” to Finland and Sweden in their bid to join Nato, giving the leaders a red-carpet welcome at the White House.
Finland and Sweden had historically kept a distance from the alliance to avoid angering Russia but changed course – despite warnings from the Kremlin.
Turkey has voiced misgivings about the applicants, accusing them of what it describes as leniency towards armed Kurdish groups. –