Ukraine’s president expects Russian attacks to intensify with EU summit this week

KYIV, June 20 (Reuters) – Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has predicted Russia will step up its attacks this week as European Union leaders consider whether to back their country’s bid to join the bloc and Russia presses on its campaign to gain control of eastern Ukraine.

“Obviously this week we should expect Russia to escalate its hostile activities,” Zelenskiy said in a video address Sunday night. “We’re getting ready. We’re ready.”

Ukraine applied to join the EU four days after Russian troops crossed its border in February. The EU executive, the European Commission, recommended on Friday that Ukraine receive candidate status. read more

Leaders of the 27-nation union will consider the issue at a summit on Thursday and Friday and are expected to back Ukraine’s request despite misgivings from some member states. The process could take many years to complete.

The EU’s acceptance of Ukraine would interfere with one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s stated goals when he ordered his troops into Ukraine: to keep Moscow’s southern neighbor out of the West’s sphere of influence.

Putin said on Friday that Russia had “nothing against” Ukraine’s EU membership, but a Kremlin spokesman said Russia was closely monitoring Kyiv’s offer, especially in light of increased cooperation on security matters. defense among EU members.

On the battlefield, Russian forces are trying to take full control of the eastern Donbas region, part of which was already in the hands of Russian-backed separatists before the February 24 invasion.

A main target of the Russian eastern assault is the industrial city of Sievierodonetsk. Russia said on Sunday it had seized Metyolkine, a town on the outskirts, and the Russian state news agency TASS reported that many Ukrainian fighters had surrendered there. Ukraine’s military said Russia had “partial success” in the area.

Luhansk Governor Serhiy Gaidai told Ukrainian television that a Russian attack on Toshkivka, 35 km (20 miles) south of Sievierodonetsk, also “had a certain degree of success.” TASS, citing an aide to the interior minister of the Lugansk People’s Republic, reported that Toshkivka had been “released”.

In Sievierodonetsk, a prewar city of 100,000, Mayor Olekander Struk said Russian forces controlled about two-thirds of the city, including most of the residential areas, and were continuing to throw forces at Ukrainians in an attempt to take complete control.

“I’m hoping the city will hold, and once it has the upper hand in firepower, we can liberate it without abandoning it first.”

Both Russia and Ukraine have continued heavy bombardment around Sievierodonetsk “with little change to the front line”, Britain’s Defense Ministry said on Sunday.

In Sievierodonetsk’s twin city of Lysychansk, residential and administrative buildings were destroyed by Russian shelling, Gaidai said. “People are dying on the streets and in bomb shelters,” he said.

Reuters was unable to independently confirm the battlefield accounts.

“WAR COULD LAST YEARS”

Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, wrote in a note that “Russian forces will probably be able to seize Sievierodonetsk in the coming weeks, but at the cost of concentrating most of their available forces in this small area.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said the Ukraine war could last for years and urged Western governments to continue sending state-of-the-art weaponry to Ukrainian troops, German newspaper Bild am Sonntag reported. read more

“We must prepare for the fact that it could take years. We must not give up supporting Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said.

Russia has said it has launched what it calls a “special military operation” to disarm its neighbor and protect Russian-speakers from dangerous nationalists.

Ukraine and its allies dismiss it as a baseless pretext for a war of aggression.

In Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, northwest of Lugansk, Russia’s Defense Ministry said its Iskander missiles had destroyed weapons recently supplied by Western countries.

Russian forces were trying to move closer to Kharkiv, which experienced heavy shelling earlier in the war, and turn it into a “front-line city”, a Ukrainian Interior Ministry official said. read more

The governor of Russia’s Bryansk region said the border village of Suzemka had been shelled from northern Ukraine, one person was injured and a power plant was damaged.

Ukraine’s general staff said Russia had deployed an anti-aircraft missile division in Bryansk and up to three battalion tactical groups were covering the border in Bryansk and neighboring Kursk regions.

Towards Kharkiv, the Russians were trying to prevent Ukrainian forces from advancing towards the border, he added.

In southern Ukraine, Western weaponry had helped Ukrainian forces advance 10 km (6 miles) into Russian-occupied Melitopol, its mayor said in a video posted on Telegram from outside the city.

Australia’s Defense Ministry said it had sent the first four of 14 promised armored personnel carriers to Ukraine, as part of a $200 million aid pledge.

Information from the offices of Reuters and Maria Starkova; Written by Cynthia Osterman and Lincoln Feast, edited by Robert Birsel

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