Vladimir Putin’s new threats to the parliamentary leaders of the Federal Assembly. US Secretary of State Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov avoid each other at the G20 summit
FROM OUR MAIL
MYKOLAIV – «In Ukraine we haven’t started to get serious yet». In front of the parliamentary leaders of the Federal Assembly, Vladimir Putin launches a new verbal attack on the West: «Do they want to defeat us on the ground? Let her try ».
The tsar accuses the countries that support Kyiv of a proxy war and weakens hopes for peace: “The longer the clashes last, the more difficult it becomes to start negotiations.”
Meanwhile, the fight goes on.
On the southern front, Russian rockets bombed two grain silos in the night, in which 35 tons of grain were stored. Huge damage, although according to the spokesman for the head of the Odessa regional military administration, Sergiy Bratchuk, there were no casualties.
Also off the Black Sea, the Moldovan-flagged oil tanker Millennial Spirit was hit and ended up floating. The boat was mostly empty, but inside there are remnants of the diesel that transported it. The Russians also damaged Snake Island’s docking deck. An attack that did not prevent Kiev forces from raising the Ukrainian flag on the island, which has been recaptured in recent days, with the message: “Remember Russian warship, the island of snakes is Ukrainian” and the signatures the military leader of Southern Command.
To the east, the army is attempting to eliminate the last pockets of resistance in Lugansk and advance deeper into Donetsk, pursuing Ukrainian forces stationed around the city of Sloviansk. And in view of the Russian advance, the evacuation of the civilian population continues: Sloviansk, which had 110,000 inhabitants before the war, has been the target of massive Russian bombing raids for several days. “The evacuation is underway,” said Mayor Vadim Liakh, “and at the moment 23,000 people are still living in Sloviansk.”
After capturing Lysyhansk on Sunday, a week after the Ukrainian army withdrew from neighboring Severodonetsk, the Russian army claims that almost the entire Lugansk province is under its control, something Ukrainians continue to deny. “Fighting is still going on in two villages,” assured Governor Sergiy Gaidai.
The Russians are now attempting to seize the second Donbass province, Donetsk, in order to seize the entire mine basin that the pro-Russian separatists have partially controlled since 2014. To do this, however, they must take Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, the two largest cities in the region…still in Ukrainian hands.
In Bali, at the end of the first day of the G20, there were no talks between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, but the Ukraine conflict dominated the summit with numerous meetings in the fringe.
Lavrov met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, to whom he once again reiterated the desire for cooperation between the two countries and then urged the Beijing representative to unite in order not to give in to pressure from the United States: “We are gaining more and more support and international Recognition,” said Lavrov, who, according to the Russian press, encouraged Wang Yi to oppose the “overtly aggressive policies” of Western nations.
Instead, at a meeting with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu, Lavrov took the opportunity to reiterate that “further Western support for the militaristic ambitions of the Kiev regime is unacceptable” for Moscow.
July 7, 2022 (change July 7, 2022 | 10:17 p.m.)
© REPRODUCTION RESERVED