Amid the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, an important Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk was recently bombed under a ‘massive’ Russian bombing. According to reports, despite fierce resistance from the underprivileged Ukrainian army, Moscow troops have been pounding eastern Ukraine for weeks and advancing slowly. As Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces tighten their grip on the strategically important city of Severodonetsk in the Donbas, its sister city, Lysychansk, is now under heavier bombing.
According to the AFP news agency, Moscow is trying to conquer a vast eastern part of the country after being pushed back from Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine following their invasion in February. Meanwhile, amid the crisis, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Wednesday that Ukraine and Russia are a long way from ending the war through negotiations. He added that Putin mistakenly believed he could dictate the terms of peace.
China says the Ukraine crisis has raised the alarm for humanity.
The conflict in Ukraine has “sounded an alarm signal to humanity,” Chinese leader Xi Jinping said on Wednesday, as China continues to maintain a position of neutrality while backing its ally Russia. China has refused to criticize or even refer to Russia’s war in Ukraine as an invasion out of deference to Moscow, condemning US-led sanctions against Russia and accusing the West of provoking Moscow. “The crisis in Ukraine has once again raised the alarm for humanity. Countries will certainly run into security problems if they put blind faith in their strong position, expand military alliances and seek their security at the expense of others,” the official Xinhua News Agency quoted Mr. Xi as saying.
German Chancellor Scholz says Ukraine and Russia are still ‘far from’ peace talks.
Ukraine and Russia are still a long way from ending the war through negotiations, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Wednesday, adding that President Vladimir Putin mistakenly believed he could dictate the terms for peace. The German chancellor also said Ukraine needed massive financial aid to rebuild after the devastation wrought by the Russian invasion, adding that reconstruction would be a “task for generations”.
Pro-Russian troops ‘near encirclement’ important Ukrainian city
Pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine on Wednesday claimed they were close to Ukrainian forces defending the twin cities of Lysychansk and Severodonetsk, the site of fierce weeks of fighting. An officer of the separatist army of Luhansk – a pro-Russian breakaway region in eastern Ukraine – said their troops surrounded Ukrainian forces in the villages of Hirsch and Zolote a day after taking the neighboring town of Toshkivka. The three settlements are located a few kilometers outside Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, which Moscow’s forces have been trying to capture for weeks.- AFP
Ordinary Ukrainians who resist the invasion of Russia are my role models: Zelensky.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday that his role models were ordinary Ukrainians who resisted invading Russian forces; he compared Russia to the fictional archvillain Lord Voldemort in the “Harry Potter” books. Dressed in a military uniform, Mr. Zelensky answered questions from students at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy via a video link. When asked by a student who his role models were, Mr. Zelensky: “The people of Ukraine… and there are a lot of them.” – Reuters.
