A Ukrainian main battle tank drives in Severodonetsk, eastern Ukraine, May 18, 2022 (AFP/Yasuyoshi CHIBA)
The US Congress on Thursday released a gargantuan $40 billion package to arm and assist Ukraine, as Moscow secured a symbolic victory with images of hundreds of Ukrainian fighters emerging distraught from the Azovstal factory in Mariupol, where they had been working for weeks were entrenched under the bombs.
In particular, this major $6 billion aid package will allow Ukraine to equip itself with armored vehicles and strengthen its anti-aircraft defenses while fighting rages in the east and south of the country. Moscow has decided to focus its efforts there in recent weeks after failing to bring Kyiv and Kharkiv to the north.
G7 finance ministers meeting in Germany on Thursday began counting the billions of euros, pounds and dollars each country could quickly spend to support Ukraine’s economy and its military efforts.
The law now only needs to be ratified by President Joe Biden.
In mid-March, Congress had already released almost $14 billion for the Ukraine crisis, but Joe Biden had been calling for a significant budget expansion to support Ukraine in the new phase of the conflict for several weeks.
Image released by the Russian Defense Ministry on May 18, 2022, showing Ukrainian soldiers being searched by pro-Russian soldiers after exiting the Azovstal Steel Plant in Mariupol (Russian Defense Ministry/Handout)
The major announcement, which has been eagerly awaited in Kyiv, comes as Russia announced on Thursday that nearly 800 Ukrainian soldiers holed up in the bowels of the gargantuan Azovstal steel complex in Mariupol had surrendered over the past 24 hours , bringing the total as of Monday to 1,730.
Moscow released images showing cohorts of men in riot gear emerging, some with crutches or Bandages the country where at least 20 thousand people died, according to Kyiv.
These soldiers, including 80 wounded, “made themselves prisoners,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a press release.
Kyiv has not spoken of a surrender and Ukrainian officials declined to comment at this time. But President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke on Monday of an “evacuation” aimed at saving the lives of these Ukrainian “heroes” through international mediation.
The UN implicitly endorsed the version of a negotiated settlement, as previously seen under the ICRC’s aegis in the evacuation of civilians from Mariupol, and on Thursday called on Russia and Ukraine to resume talks to “end this war.”
“I like to think that we can build on the fact that this cooperation has worked relatively well, at least much better than in the previous weeks,” UN emergency chief Martin Griffiths said at a press conference in Geneva.
The evacuated fighters, mostly members of a unit of naval riflemen from the Ukrainian army and the Azov regiment set up by Ukrainian nationalists, had holed up for several weeks in the maze of underground tunnels dug under the gigantic steelworks during the Soviet era, heavily bombed the Russians.
Pro-Russian separatist leader Denis Pushilin said on Wednesday the commanders had not yet surrendered and said there were initially “more than 2,000 people” at the scene.
– “War of Independence” –
Map of the situation in Ukraine as of May 19 at 7am GMT (AFP /)
In a video released Thursday evening, Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Azov regiment, confirmed he was still at the factory with the rest of the command and refused to reveal details about the ongoing “operation”.
Their fate, however, remains unclear: Ukraine wants to organize an exchange of prisoners of war, but Russia has repeatedly indicated that it considers at least some of them not soldiers but “neo-Nazi” fighters.
Despite this sequence of essentially symbolic value for Russia, which held almost complete control of the city for several weeks, President Zelenskyy declared in a video marking Vychyvanka Day on Thursday that his people are “strong, indestructible, brave and free”. the famous traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirt he wore for the occasion.
“For us, this war is undoubtedly a war of independence,” he said in a speech to students, stressing that Russia “will probably always remain a threat.”
– “Please excuse me” –
Highly symbolic for Ukraine this time, the first-ever war crimes trial of a Russian soldier resumed in Kyiv on Thursday.
“I know you cannot forgive me, but I beg your pardon,” youthful-faced Sergeant Vadim Chichimarine, 21, said of the widow of the 62-year-old man he is accused of murdering on February 28 in northeastern Ukraine , while trying to join his people after his column of armored vehicles was attacked.
A life sentence has been sought against the young soldier, who pleaded guilty.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday called the allegations against Russian troops “falsified or staged”.
However, another war crimes trial opened Thursday in northeastern Ukraine: the trial of two Russian soldiers accused of firing rockets at civilian infrastructure in the Kharkiv region.
Russian bombing continues to claim casualties. According to local governor Serguiï Gaïdaï, they left 12 dead and 40 injured in Severodonetsk in the Lugansk region (east) on Thursday. He said most of the shots hit apartment buildings and the death toll could be rising.
An AFP team on the ground found that this industrial city had been turned into a battlefield for several days and crushed under artillery fire.
“I don’t know how much longer we can last,” said Nella Kachkina, 65, a former community worker, now retired.
– “determined” –
Severodonetsk and Lysychansk form the last nest of Ukrainian resistance in the Lugansk region. The Russians now surrounded these two places, separated only by a river, and bombarded them relentlessly to exhaust the resistance and prevent the arrival of reinforcements.
According to a daily report by the Ukrainian military, “the enemy has increased its attacks and attempted attacks to improve its tactical positions” in the Donbass, the Russian-speaking eastern region that has been partially controlled by pro-Russian separatists since 2014 and that Moscow is unable to take Kyiv and the rest of the country wants to take total control.
The Pentagon warned Thursday that despite successes by Ukrainian forces in the north, the Russian military is managing to tighten its grip on Donbass and the country’s south, meaning the conflict could drag on.
“We are absolutely committed to doing everything we can to help the Ukrainians defend themselves,” a senior US Defense Department official told reporters.
Photo from G7 Big Money, May 19, 2022 near Bonn, Germany (AFP / Ina Fassbender)
For the first time since the beginning of the war, the American and Russian chiefs of staff, Generals Mark Milley and Valéri Guerassimov, spoke on the phone on Thursday, the Pentagon also announced.
On the economic front, the G7 big moneymakers met in Germany on Thursday and Friday to support Ukraine and examine the global fallout from the war Moscow started almost three months ago.
On Wednesday, the European Commission proposed “new macro-financial assistance” to Ukraine of “up to €9 billion” for this year.
The entire world economy is affected to varying degrees by this offensive and the resulting sanctions against Moscow.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday warned of the “spectre of global food shortages in the coming months” and implored Russia to unblock Ukrainian grain exports and the West to allow Russian fertilizers access to world markets.