Ukrainian forces are still holding out in Syevyerodonetsk, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said, despite being outnumbered and outgunned by Russian forces.
“There are more of them, they are more powerful, but we have every chance to fight on this direction,” Zelenskiy said, adding that the intense house-to-house fighting and the Russians’ indiscriminate shelling have turned Syevyerodonetsk and its twin city of Lysychansk into “dead cities.”
Luhansk regional Governor Serhiy Hayday said the battle for Syevyerodonetsk is in “full swing.” Writing on the messaging app Telegram early on June 7, Hayday said that in Lysychansk Russian fire appeared to have hit a market and a school.
If captured, the two strategic targets that are still in Ukrainian hands would deliver Russian forces the entire eastern Luhansk region.
The Ukrainian armed forces said in a morning update on June 7 that Russia’s “main efforts” remained focused on Syevyerodonetsk and nearby Bakhmut, where another counterattack has been launched.
The Russian advances made last month toward Popasna, some 50 kilometers south of Syevyerodonetsk, stalled last week, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said on June 7 in its daily intelligence bulletin.
The Bulletin said that Moscow will “almost certainly” need to achieve a breakthrough either in Popasna, or north of Syevyerodonetsk, in the Izyum area if it wants to achieve “success and progress towards its political objective of controlling all of Donetsk Oblast.”
Zelenskiy, speaking in his nightly address on June 6, said a “threatening situation” had developed in Zaporizhzhya, where Russian troops intend to capture the southeastern region’s main city even as they fight for control of Syevyerodonetsk.
“The enemy wants to…occupy the city of Zaporizhzhya,” Zelenskiy told a news conference on June 6.
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The General Staff of the Ukrainian armed forces also said that Russian troops were strengthening in the direction of Zaporizhzhya.
Capture of the city of Zaporizhzhya would allow the Russian military to advance closer to the center of the country.
The Zaporizhzhya region, parts of which have already been taken by Russia, is one of the biggest industrial regions of Ukraine’s southeast and is home to Europe’s largest nuclear plant.
Zelenskiy also said there might be more than 2,500 prisoners from the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol now detained by the Russians in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine.
Zelenskiy said the Russians’ intentions regarding those prisoners were changing constantly. Moscow-backed separatist officials in Donetsk have spoken of putting some of the Azovstal defenders on trial, where they are accused of having carried out human rights abuses in Ukraine.
The Associated Press, meanwhile, said that dozens of bodies of Ukrainian troops killed during the siege of Azovstal had been returned by the Russian forces to Ukraine.
The recovery of their remains has not been announced by the Ukrainian government, and Russian officials have not commented, but relatives of soldiers killed at the plant discussed the process with the Associated Press.
Mariupol residents have been facing a growing humanitarian crisis, compounded by acute shortages of food and water.
A Ukrainian official said on June 6 that contamination from decomposing corpses and rubbish had sparked a cholera outbreak — prompting a city-wide quarantine.
“We are seeing the city get closed off,” Petro Andryushchenko, who is an adviser to the city’s mayor, told the media.
Zelenskiy also said the country is hoping to create secure corridors that would allow its ships to export grain from Black Sea ports blocked by the fighting. Ukraine is in talks with Turkey and Britain about security guaranties for Ukrainian ships carrying grain, he said.
“It is important for us that there is a security corridor…that the fleet of this or that country ensures the shipping of the grain,” Zelenskiy said.
Grain exports were a topic of discussion at the UN Security Council in New York, where European Council President Charles Michel blamed the Kremlin for a looming global food crisis.
Michel addressed Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya directly at a council meeting on June 6, saying he saw millions of tons of grain and wheat stuck in containers and ships at the Ukrainian port of Odesa a few weeks ago “because of Russian warships in the Black Sea.”
His comments prompted Nebenzya to walk out.
Russia on June 6 imposed sanctions on 61 U.S. officials, including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and the heads of leading defense and media companies.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said the move was in response to the “ever-expanding U.S. sanctions on Russian political and public figures, as well as representatives of domestic businesses.”
U.S. authorities charged Russian businessman Roman Abramovich with exporting two planes without a license as required under U.S. sanctions imposed on Moscow in response to its invasion of Ukraine.
The Justice Department ordered the seizure of the two planes in court filings that said they had been flown into Russian territory earlier this year in violation of U.S. export controls.
