Russian forces have taken control of most of the key Donbas city of Syevyerodonetsk amid fierce house-to-house fighting as Kyiv awaits delivery of crucial advanced U.S. and German weaponry that Moscow warned would “pour gas on the fire” in the war in eastern Ukraine.
Ukrainian forces are holding just 20 percent of Syevyerodonetsk, with the Russians controlling more than 60 percent, while the rest has become “no-man’s land,” Oleksandr Stryuk, the Ukrainian head of the city administration, said on June 1.
Stryuk, who declined to give his location, said the Ukrainians fighting pitched battles in the city still hope that they can prevent Russia taking full control.
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“The 20 percent is being fiercely defended by our armed forces,” Stryuk said. “
“We have hope that despite everything, we will free the city and not allow it to be completely occupied,” he said, adding that 12,000 to 13,000 people were trapped in the city without food or water.
“Part of the Ukrainian troops” have now “retreated to more advantageous, pre-prepared positions,” said Serhiy Hayday, the head of the Luhansk regional military administration, while other troops continue “fighting inside the city.”
The British Ministry of Defense said earlier in its daily intelligence update on Twitter on June 1 that according to its estimates, “over half of the town is likely now occupied by Russian forces, including Chechen fighters.”
The British intelligence report said that outside of the Donbas, “Russia continues to conduct long-range missile strikes against infrastructure across Ukraine.”
The Ukrainian General Staff said in an update on June 1 that Russia was “focusing its efforts on conducting offensive operations” in the Donetsk area, with the support of the air force, and was firing “along the line of contact from mortars, artillery, and multiple-rocket launchers” in order to “inflict losses and deplete the personnel of our troops.”
In Lyman, 60 kilometers west of Syevyerodonetsk, “the fighting continues,” the Ukrainian military said, despite earlier report that the town, an important railway junction, had fallen to the Russians.
Further south in Bakhmut, Russia is “trying to oust units of our troops from their positions,” the military said.
The United States, meanwhile, has agreed to deliver longer-range rocket systems in a boost for the outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian forces.
In an essay in The New York Times on May 31, U.S. President Joe Biden confirmed that he had decided to “provide the Ukrainians with more advanced rocket systems and munitions that will enable them to more precisely strike key targets on the battlefield in Ukraine.”
The high-mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS) can strike with precision at targets up to 80 kilometers away.
Washington agreed to the delivery after Ukraine gave “assurances” the missiles will not be used to strike inside Russia, a senior administration official said.
The announced consignment of high-tech weaponry stops short of delivering the long-range systems repeatedly requested by Kyiv.
Washington will send Ukraine the HIMARS rocket systems as part of a new $700 million package of security assistance that will be unveiled later on June 1.
It will also include helicopters, Javelin anti-tank weapon systems, tactical vehicles, spare parts, and more, according to unnamed officials.
Although the HIMARS system stops short of the long-range rockets repeatedly requested by Kyiv — the M270 MLRS and the M142 that have a range of up to 300 kilometers — the news of the U.S. decision provoked anger in Moscow.
“We believe that the United States is purposefully and diligently adding fuel to the fire,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a regular conference call on June 1.
Peskov added that the Kremlin did not trust Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s assurances that Kyiv would not use the new weaponry to attack Russian territory.
Following the U.S. announcement, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on June 1 pledged to send Ukraine high-tech anti-aircraft systems amid criticism from the opposition that Berlin hasn’t provided enough military aid in the fight against Russia’s unprovoked invasion.
Speaking to lawmakers in Berlin on June 1, Scholz said the government had approved a proposal to ship IRIS-T missiles and radar systems to Kyiv as Russia continues to pound targets in eastern Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Pope Francis warned on June 1 that food cannot become a weapon in the war Russia has launched against Ukraine.
The 85-year-old pontiff said during a regular audience on St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican that a blockade of grain exports from Ukraine, which millions of people depend on, especially in the poorest countries, “is causing grave concern.”
“Please, one does not use grain, a basic food, as a weapon in war!” he said, adding that everything must be done to solve the problem and guarantee people’s basic right to food staples.
On June 1, the Kremlin again said sanctions imposed on Russia by the West, and moves by Ukraine, were to blame for the potential food crisis.