Kiev, Ukraine (AP) – A senior Russian diplomat has warned Ukraine against causing World War III, saying the threat of a nuclear conflict “should not be underestimated” as his country has carried out attacks on metals and plant. refueling station away from Moscow’s New East first line. Nakakasakit.
Meanwhile, the British Defense Ministry said on Tuesday that Russian forces had occupied the Ukrainian city of Kremina in the Luhansk region after street fighting.
“The city of Kremina has fallen and intense fighting is taking place south of Izium as Russian forces try to advance towards the cities of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk from the north and east,” the British military wrote on Twitter. He did not say how he found out that the city, located 575 kilometers (355 miles) southeast of the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, had collapsed. The Ukrainian government did not immediately comment.
The Ukrainian general staff said Russian forces bombed Kharkov, the country’s second largest city, as they fought for full control of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which include the Ukrainian industrial center of Donbass, and to establish a land corridor in the Crimea.
In the village of Velika Oleksandrivka, a village in the Kherson region largely controlled by the Russians, Ukrainian forces destroyed an ammunition depot and “detained” more than 70 Russian soldiers, staff said.
Lugansk region governor Serhiy Haidai told the Telegram messaging app that Russians had bombed civilians 17 times in the past 24 hours, with the cities of Popasna, Lisichansky and Girske being the hardest hit.
Four people were killed and nine were injured on Monday in a Russian bombing in the Donetsk region, its governor Pavlo Kirilenko told the Telegram. According to him, among the dead were a 9-year-old woman and a 14-year-old man.
The US is bringing more weapons to Ukraine and says it is changing aid to Western allies 2 months out of the war.
“Russia is losing.” Ukraine will be successful “.
He said Blinken Washington had approved the Sale of $ 165 million worth of ammunition – ammunition that was not U.S., mostly or not entirely for Soviet -era weapons in Ukraine – and was also getting more than $ 300 million in funding for buy more.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is more, saying the U.S. wants Ukraine to remain a sovereign and democratic country, but he also wants to “see Russia weaken to the point that it can’t do anything like of the invasion of Ukraine “.
Austin’s statements appear to represent a change in U.S. strategic goals, as Washington said the purpose of U.S. military aid is to help Ukraine win and protect Ukraine’s NATO neighbors from threats of Russia.
In a clear response to Austin, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia had “a feeling that the West wanted to continue to fight Ukraine and, apparently, to deplete Russia’s army and complex war military. -Russian industrialist “. It’s an illusion. “
Weapons supplied by Western countries would be a “legitimate target,” Lavrov said, adding that Russian forces are targeting arms depots in Western Ukraine.
Lavrov accused Ukrainian leaders of inciting Russia and called for NATO participation in the fighting. “NATO forces are ‘pouring oil on the fire,'” Lavrov said, according to a transcript posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website.
“Everyone is shouting spellings that we can’t allow World War III under any circumstances,” he said in a televised interview in Russia.
Lavrov said he didn’t want the risks of a nuclear confrontation to be “artificially inflated now that the risks are relatively significant.”
He said the threat was serious. “That’s true. It shouldn’t be checked.”
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleva tweeted that Lavrov’s comments emphasized Ukraine’s support for the West: “Russia is losing last hope to scare the world from supporting Ukraine. So, we’re talking about the “real” threat of World War III. “It just means that Moscow feels defeated in Ukraine.”
When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, its apparent goal was to capture the capital, Kiev. But Ukrainians helped Western weapons force President Vladimir Putin’s troops to retreat.
Moscow now says its goal is to occupy the Donbas, a mostly Russian-speaking industrial region in eastern Ukraine. On Monday, however, Russia removed its firepower elsewhere, using missiles and military aircraft. The coup was attempted behind the front lines.Failure attempt to supply Ukraine.
Five train stations in central and western Ukraine were injured and one worker was killed, said Alexander Kamyshin, head of the Ukrainian State Railways. The bombing included a missile strike near Lviv, near Poland’s western border town, where bloated Ukrainians fled violence elsewhere.
Ukrainian authorities say at least five people have been killed in Russian attacks in the central region of Vinnytsia.
Russia also destroyed an oil refinery and fuel depot in Kremenchuk, central Ukraine, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said. In all, Russian warplanes destroyed 56 of Ukraine’s targets, he said.
Philip Breedlove, a retired U.S. general who served as NATO commander-in-chief in 2013-2016, said the attacks on fuel depots were aimed at depleting Ukraine of the war’s main resources. Strikes against rail targets are aimed at disrupting supply lines and intimidating people trying to use the rail to escape fighting, he said.
Philips O’Brien, a professor of strategic studies at St Andrews University in Scotland, said the war was moving on the battlefield in a campaign of extra losses and victories.
“The two sides are weakening to each other every day,” he said.
In Transdniestria, in the breakaway region of Moldova, near the Ukrainian border, several explosions were reported as a result of a rocket-fired grenade from the Ministry of State Security. There were no reports of injuries or damage. Transnistria is a piece of land where approximately 470,000 people live. About 1,500 Russian soldiers were assigned there.
The Moldovan Foreign Ministry said that “the purpose of today’s incident was to create an excuse to exacerbate the security situation in the Transnistrian region”. The United States has said Russia could launch a “false flag” attack on its own country as a pretext to attack other countries.
Last week, Rustam Minekaev, Russia’s military commander, said the Kremlin wanted full control over southern Ukraine to give way to Transnistria.
About 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers assigned to a steel mill in the strategic southern port city of Mariupol are limiting Russian forces, apparently preventing them from joining the offensive in the Donbas. Over the weekend, Russian forces launched a new air strike at the Azovstal plant to test the deployed depots.
About 1,000 civilians are also said to be fleeing the steel mill.
The city council and the mayor of Mariupol said a new mass grave was discovered about 10 miles north of the city. Mayor Vadim Boichenko said that authorities are trying to determine the number of victims. It is at least the third new mass grave discovered in Russian -controlled areas near Mariupol last week.
For the past two months Mariupol has been plagued by bombings and fierce street fighting. Russia’s takeover of the city would occupy an important port in Ukraine and give Moscow a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which it took from Ukraine in 2014.
In his nightly video speech, Zelensky said Ukraine was resisting “making the presence of occupiers on our land more intolerable”, while Russia was wasting its resources.
Britain says it estimates 15,000 Russian soldiers have died since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said 25% of Russian combat troops sent to Ukraine had become “ineffective for combat”.
Ukrainian officials said between 2,500 and 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in mid -April.
Reported by Gambrel from Lviv, Ukraine. Associated Press reporter Yura Karmanau in Lviv and AP staff around the world contributed to this report.
Source: Huffpost
