Yesterday, Russian troops intensified their attacks on the last pockets of resistance near Lugansk, located in Donbass in eastern Ukraine, as the war went on for four months. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February, Kyiv has been able, with the help of Western countries, to resist the advance of its neighbor’s forces in many areas, including the capital Kyiv, but now Russia is focused on ensuring security. and expanding their conquests in the Donbass and on the east coast of Ukraine.
“The coming weeks of war will be tough and we need to be aware of that,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his daily speech, his comments coming after local authorities and residents reported massive bombings. He stressed that “the most difficult combat situation is now in the Donbass”, referring specifically to the most affected cities of Bakhmut, Bobsany and Severodonetsk.
In a Facebook update on Tuesday, the Ukrainian military said Russian forces were conducting continuous “offensive operations” in the region, adding: “The enemy is firing heavily along the line of contact.”
The governor of Lugansk said that Russia had brought in thousands of soldiers to take over the entire region and that Severodonetsk was under heavy attack, warning people that it was too late to leave.
“At this stage, I won’t say: get out, leave, now I’ll say: stay in shelters … because the intensity of the bombing will not allow us to calmly mobilize people and come after them,” Sergei Gaide said on Telegram.
Residents of Bakhmut, a village located at a key crossroads that is the command center for much of Ukraine’s operations, told AFP that they were bombarded from the air.
In this context, adviser to the Russian mission to the UN in Geneva, Boris Bondarev, announced his resignation after 20 years of diplomatic duties in protest against the Russian invasion.
In Berlin, German Economics Minister Robert Habeck calculated that a decision to impose a European embargo on Russian oil would be made “in a few days.”
“Only a few countries, especially Hungary, are talking about having problems,” Habek told public broadcaster ZDF. “Discussions are ongoing and I think we’ll see a breakthrough in a few days.”
The Europeans have announced a halt to Russian coal imports from August next year, but an oil embargo due by the end of the year is still being discussed.
The European Commission proposes to use Russian assets to finance the restoration of Ukraine
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has proposed using Russian assets to finance the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine due to a startling escalation of events: yesterday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, she said: frozen if possible, due to sanctions imposed by the European Union in relation to Russian individuals and legal entities. “It’s not just about repairing the damage caused by Putin’s destructive anger, but about building a future that Ukrainians have chosen for themselves,” Von der Leyen added, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin, adding that “Ukraine belongs to the European family. A European official compared the practice attributed to Russia in Ukraine to the Soviet Union’s crop confiscation, noting that “the Russian army confiscates stockpiles of grain and equipment” in Ukraine.
