- Ukraine rules out ceasefire, concessions
- Russia launches attack in Luhansk, Mykolayiv
- Ukraine must decide its own future, says Polish President
Kyiv, May 22 – Ukraine ruled out a ceasefire or territorial concessions to Moscow as Russia stepped up its offensive in the east and south of the country, bombarding the Donbass and Mykolaiv regions with airstrikes and artillery fire.
Kiev’s stance has become increasingly hard-line in recent weeks as Russia faced military setbacks, while Ukrainian officials increasingly feared they might be pressured to sacrifice land for a peace deal.
“The war must end with the full restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty,” Ukrainian Presidential Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak said in a Twitter post on Sunday.
Polish President Andrzej Duda offered the support to Warsaw, telling MPs in Kyiv on Sunday that the international community must demand Russia’s complete withdrawal and that it would be a “major blow” to the entire West if he were even a part of it sacrifice.
“Concerning voices have emerged saying that Ukraine should give in to the demands of (President Vladimir) Putin,” said Duda, the first foreign leader to address Ukraine’s parliament in person since invading Russia on February 24. Continue reading
“Only Ukraine has the right to decide its future,” he said.
In a speech to the same parliamentary session, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky renewed his plea for stronger economic sanctions against Moscow.
“Half measures should not be used when stopping aggression,” he said.
Shortly after both finished their speeches, an air raid siren sounded in the capital, a reminder that the war raged on, even though its front lines are hundreds of kilometers away.
Zelinskiy said at a press conference with Duda that every day 50 to 100 Ukrainians die on the eastern front of the war, which apparently was an indication of military casualties.
Russia is waging a major offensive in Luhansk, one of two provinces in Donbass, after ending weeks of resistance by the last Ukrainian militants in the strategic south-eastern port of Mariupol.
The heaviest fighting was concentrated around the twin cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, Interior Ministry adviser Vadym Denysenko told Ukrainian television on Sunday.
The cities form the eastern part of a Ukrainian pocket that Russia has been trying to overrun since mid-April after failing to capture Kyiv and shifting its focus to the east and south of the country.
Russian shelling and “heavy fighting” near Sievierodonetsk continued, but invading forces failed to secure the nearby village of Oleksandrivka, according to a statement by the Ukrainian military.
Russia’s defense ministry said on Sunday its forces had pounded Ukrainian command centers, troops and ammunition depots in Donbass and the southern Mykolayiv region with airstrikes and artillery. Continue reading
Reuters was unable to independently verify these battlefield reports.
A view of the destroyed village of Moshchun, amid the Russian invasion, Kyiv region, Ukraine May 19, 2022. Image taken with a drone. REUTERS/Leonardo Benassatto
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Russian-backed separatists already controlled parts of Luhansk and neighboring Donetsk before the invasion, but Moscow wants to seize the remaining Ukrainian-held territory in the region.
A blast seriously injured a Russian-appointed mayor in the city of Enerhodar, Russia’s RIA news agency reported. Reuters could not immediately determine what caused the explosion. L2N2XE0BY
NO CONCESSIONS, NO GUNS
Ukraine’s chief negotiator, Zelenskyi adviser Mykhailo Podolyak, ruled out territorial concessions and rejected calls for an immediate ceasefire, saying it would mean Russian troops would remain in occupied territories, which Kyiv could not accept.
“The (Russian) armed forces must leave the country and after that the peace process will be possible to resume,” Podolyak said in an interview with Reuters on Saturday, describing calls for an immediate ceasefire as “very strange”.
Concessions would backfire because Russia will use the lull in fighting to come back stronger, he said. Continue reading
Recent calls for an immediate ceasefire have come from US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi. Continue reading
The end of fighting in Mariupol, the largest city Russia has captured, has handed Putin a rare victory after a series of setbacks in nearly three months of fighting.
The last of the Ukrainian forces entrenched in Mariupol’s huge Azovstal Steel Plant have surrendered, Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Friday. While Ukraine has not confirmed a full withdrawal, the commander of one of the units at the factory said in a video that the Ukrainian military command had ordered troops there to withdraw to save their lives. Continue reading
Full control of Mariupol gives Russia command of a land route connecting the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow captured in 2014, with mainland Russia and parts of eastern Ukraine held by pro-Russian separatists.
RUSSIA SHUT OFF GAS TO FINLAND
Russia’s state-owned gas company Gazprom (GAZP.MM) said on Saturday it had halted gas exports to Finland, which has rejected Moscow’s demands to pay for Russian gas in rubles after western countries imposed sanctions over the invasion. Continue reading
Most European gas supply contracts are denominated in euros or dollars, and last month Moscow canceled Bulgaria and Poland after rejecting the new terms.
Alongside the sanctions, Western nations have stepped up arms shipments and other aid to Ukraine, including a new $40 billion package from the United States. Continue reading
Moscow says Western sanctions and arms shipments to Kyiv are a “proxy war” by Washington and its allies.
Putin calls the invasion a “military special operation” to disarm Ukraine and rid it of radical anti-Russian nationalists. Ukraine and its allies have dismissed this as an unfounded pretext for the war that has killed thousands of people in Ukraine, displaced millions and destroyed cities.
Reporting by Natalia Zinets, Max Hunder, Tom Balmforth in Kyiv, David Ljunggren in Ottawa, Lidia Kelly in Melbourne, Ron Popeski and the Reuters bureaus; writing by Richard Pullin, Doina Chiacu, Tomasz Janowski and Lawrence Hurley; Edited by Frances Kerry, Frank Jack Daniel and Daniel Wallis