VLADIMIR Putin's 'brutal' battle for the key city of Severodonetsk will determine the fate of the Donbas region according to Volodymyr Zelensky.
The Ukrainian president has made the crucial statement as Russian troops have continued to bombard the city in an assault aimed at controlling eastern Ukraine.
During his daily briefing, Volodymyr Zelensky said: "This is a very brutal battle, very tough, perhaps one of the most difficult throughout this war.
"Sievierodonetsk remains the epicenter of the encounter in Donbas … Largely, that is where the fate of our Donbas is being decided now."
Ukrainian fighters have been forced to the outskirts of Sievierodonetsk on Wednesday but have vowed to fight there for as long as possible.
Artillery shelling has turned the city in Ukraine's Luhansk province to a bombed-out wasteland.
Luhansk's regional governor, Serhiy Gaidai, told Ukrainian television: "Our fighters are hanging on in the Sievierodonetsk industrial zone.
"But fighting is going on not just in the industrial zone, but right in the city of Sievierodonetsk."
Read our Ukraine war live blog below for the latest news & updates…
- Milica Cosic
Putin branded 'cold, cruel & black evil' by Ukrainian former PM
UKRAINE'S former prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, has branded Russia's Vladimir Putin as "absolutely rational, cold, cruel, black evil".
She also claimed he is determined to go down in Russian history alongside Stalin and Peter the Great.
In an exclusive interview, Tymoshenko dismissed the suggestion that the Russian president was “crazy”.
“He acts according to his own dark logic,” she said.
“He’s driven by this idea of historic mission and wants to create an empire. That’s his hyper-goal. It comes from a deep inner desire and belief.”
Tymoshenko, was the leader of the 2004 Orange revolution and prime minister twice. She also had several one-on-one meetings with Russian President Putin.
Close up, Putin was “always cautious”, she added.
“He is from a KGB school”.
Before Russia’s full-scale invasion in February, he made no secret of his belief that there was “no such nation as Ukraine, and no such people as Ukrainians”, she said.
- Milica Cosic
EU chief: Kremlin using food as ‘arsenal of terror’
European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said yesterday that the Kremlin regime is using food as an “arsenal of terror”.
Speaking to members of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Ms von der Leyen said the West “could not tolerate” Russia’s bombarding of grain storage facilities and the blockade of the Ukrainian ports.
She said: “Food has become now part of the Kremlin’s arsenal of terror. And we cannot tolerate this.
“I think that this is the only way to describe Russia’s bombarding of grain storage facilities, the blockade of the Ukrainian ports – actually also in some cases even theft of grain from Ukraine.
“So at the moment being, there are round about 20 million tonnes of grain trapped in Ukraine. And it is our duty to dismantle Russia’s disinformation.”
- Milica Cosic
Brit fighters Aiden Aslin & Shaun Pinner face 20 YEARS in prison
CAPTURED Brit fighters Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner face 20 years behind bars after "pleading guilty" in a pro-Russian court.
The two volunteers who have been fighting alongside the Ukrainian army since the start of the war in February were accused by Russian forces of being mercenaries – charges which can carry the death penalty.
Aslin and Pinner pleaded guilty to "training in order to carry out terrorist activities" according to a video released by DPR Supreme Court, Russian state media report.
Aiden Aslin, 28, from Nottinghamshire and Shaun Pinner, 48, from Bedfordshire are being held in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic – a breakaway region in the east of Ukraine.
Both men – who have lived in the country since 2018 – say they were serving with regular military units in Mariupol and so should be protected as prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention.
- Milica Cosic
UN: More than 7m border crossings registered from Ukraine
According to the UN Refugee Agency, more than 7 million people have crossed the border from Ukraine since war broke out there.
A total of 7,023,559 border crossings have been recorded since the Russian invasion began, the agency’s tally showed today.
- Milica Cosic
Ukraine's ministry shares pics of soldiers sleeping in 'cold trenches'
The Ukrainian foreign ministry has shared a heart-breaking and emotional photo showing two soldiers curled up asleep in a trench.
"These Ukrainian defenders in their positions. They sleep in cold trenches so we can sleep in our homes," the ministry said.
- Milica Cosic
Russia has stolen 600,000 tonnes of grain, Ukrainian producers say
Russia has stolen about 600,000 tonnes of grain from occupied Ukrainian territory and exported some of it, the deputy head of Ukrainian agriculture producers union UAC said on Wednesday.
Ukraine will demand Russia compensate for both the theft of the grain and the destruction of the property of farmers, UAC deputy head Denys Marchuk told Ukrainian television.
"To date, about 600,000 tonnes have been stolen from agricultural companies and taken to the temporarily occupied territory of the Crimean Peninsula and from there it moves to ports, in particular to Sevastopol, and from there, ships go to the Middle East," Marchuk said.
He added that about 100,000 tonnes of grain had already been trans-shipped in Syria, according to evidence "recorded by the USA".
He provided no additional detail. Reuters – who reported this first – was not able to verify the claims.
- Milica Cosic
Kyiv: 'Russian aggression' – not sanctions – fuelling grain crisis
Ukraine has yesterday said that Moscow's invasion was responsible for a global grain crisis, dismissing Russian claims that Western sanctions on Moscow had sent prices soaring.
"We have been actively communicating, the president and myself, about the true cause of this crisis: it is Russian aggression, not sanctions," Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said during a briefing with Ukrainian journalists released on social media.
- Milica Cosic
Ukraine & Russia exchange bodies of dead soldiers
The Ukrainian Ministry of Reintegration has said Wednesday that Ukraine and Russia have exchanged the bodies of 50 dead soldiers.
In a Facebook post, the authority added that 37 of the fighters were killed at Mariupol's Azovstal steel works.
"On the front line in the Zaporizhzhya region, an exchange of bodies of dead soldiers between Ukraine and Russia under the formula 50 by 50," the ministry said.
"The process of returning the bodies of dead Ukrainian soldiers is ongoing."
- Milica Cosic
Former Russian president lashes out at those who ‘hate’ Russia
Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president who served between 2008 and 2012, has lashed out at those who “hate” Russia – calling them “degenerates” and vowing to “make them disappear”.
Medvedev, who is now deputy head of the Security Council, wrote on Telegram: “I am often asked why my Telegram posts are so harsh. The answer is I hate them. They are bastards and degenerates.
“They want death for us, Russia. And while I’m alive, I will do everything to make them disappear.”
However, he did not say nor specify who “they” were.
- Milica Cosic
Russia DENIES responsibility for global food crisis
Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday the onus was on Ukraine to solve the problem of resuming grain shipments by de-mining its ports.
Lavrov said no action was required on the Russian side because it had already made the necessary commitments.
"We state daily that we're ready to guarantee the safety of vessels leaving Ukrainian ports and heading for the (Bosphorus) gulf, we're ready to do that in cooperation with our Turkish colleagues," he said after talks with his Turkish counterpart.
"To solve the problem, the only thing needed is for the Ukrainians to let vessels out of their ports, either by demining them or by marking out safe corridors, nothing more is required."
Ukraine is one of the world's biggest exporters of grain, and Western countries have accused Russia of creating the risk of global famine by shutting Ukraine's Black Sea ports.
Moscow denies responsibility for the international food crisis, blaming Western sanctions.
- Milica Cosic
Russian troops ‘control most of Severodonetsk’
Ukraine has said that Russian forces control most of the strategic city of Severodonetsk, according to the Luhansk region’s governor Serhiy Gaidai.
It has been said that they are also heavily shelling the twin city of Lysychansk.
In an online post, Mr Gaidai also said there was no chance of Ukrainian troops in the Luhansk region being encircled.
Russian forces temporarily control 90 per cent of the region, he added.
- Milica Cosic
'Caravan of death' in Mariupol
Workers are removing bodies from the ruins of high-rise buildings in the devastated Ukrainian port city of Mariupol and transporting them in an endless caravan of death, a mayoral aide said today.
Petro Andryushchenko said on the Telegram app that in a search of about two-fifths of the buildings they have found from 50 to 100 bodies in each. They are taking the bodies to morgues and landfills.
Ukrainian authorities estimate at least 21,000 civilians were killed and hundreds of buildings destroyed during a weekslong Russian siege of Mariupol.
Reports have surfaced of mass graves holding thousands of bodies.
Russia claimed full control of Mariupol last month.
- Milica Cosic
EU chief: Kremlin using food as 'arsenal of terror'
European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said today that the Kremlin regime is using food as an "arsenal of terror".
Speaking to members of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Ms von der Leyen said the West "could not tolerate" Russia's bombarding of grain storage facilities and the blockade of the Ukrainian ports.
She said: "Food has become now part of the Kremlin's arsenal of terror. And we cannot tolerate this.
"I think that this is the only way to describe Russia's bombarding of grain storage facilities, the blockade of the Ukrainian ports – actually also in some cases even theft of grain from Ukraine.
"So at the moment being, there are round about 20 million tonnes of grain trapped in Ukraine. And it is our duty to dismantle Russia's disinformation."
- Milica Cosic
Russia attacking Ukraine food targets to scare world, says regional governor
Russia is attacking food and agriculture targets in Ukraine in order to scare the world into agreeing a deal to reopen the Black Sea on Moscow's terms, the head of the region said.
Vitaliy Kim, governor of the Mykolaiv region, where Russian shelling destroyed the warehouses of one of Ukraine's largest agricultural commodities terminals over the weekend, said Moscow wanted to make global food shortages "look like a catastrophe".
"They want to do this because they are trying to trade about opening the Black Sea" in the hope of a deal that might allow Ukrainian and Russian grain to use the waterway, possibly in exchange for an easing of sanctions, Kim told Reuters in an interview today.
"That is why they shoot more. Why they shoot the agricultural enterprises and even fields – just for their own movie that fields are on fire," said Kim, who was speaking outside his former office.
- Milica Cosic
Putin branded 'cold, cruel & black evil' by Ukrainian former PM
UKRAINE'S former prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, has branded Russia's Vladimir Putin as "absolutely rational, cold, cruel, black evil".
She also claimed he is determined to go down in Russian history alongside Stalin and Peter the Great.
In an exclusive interview, Tymoshenko dismissed the suggestion that the Russian president was “crazy”.
“He acts according to his own dark logic,” she said.
“He’s driven by this idea of historic mission and wants to create an empire. That’s his hyper-goal. It comes from a deep inner desire and belief.”
Tymoshenko, was the leader of the 2004 Orange revolution and prime minister twice. She also had several one-on-one meetings with Russian President Putin.
Close up, Putin was “always cautious”, she added.
“He is from a KGB school”.
Before Russia’s full-scale invasion in February, he made no secret of his belief that there was “no such nation as Ukraine, and no such people as Ukrainians”, she said.
- Milica Cosic
UN: More than 7m border crossings registered from Ukraine
According to the UN Refugee Agency, more than 7 million people have crossed the border from Ukraine since war broke out there.
A total of 7,023,559 border crossings have been recorded since the Russian invasion began, the agency’s tally showed today.
- Milica Cosic
Russia pushes Ukrainian defenders to outskirts of key eastern city
Ukrainian forces pulled back to the outskirts of the industrial city of Sievierodonetsk today in the face of a fierce Russian assault, the regional governor said.
Ukraine has vowed to fight there for as long as possible, saying the battle could help shape the war's future course.
"…Our (forces) now again control only the outskirts of the city. But the fighting is still going on … it is impossible to say the Russians completely control the city," Serhiy Gaidai, governor of the region, told the RBC-Ukraine media outlet.
- Milica Cosic
UN: More than 7m border crossings registered from Ukraine
According to the UN Refugee Agency, more than 7 million people have crossed the border from Ukraine since war broke out there.
A total of 7,023,559 border crossings have been recorded since the Russian invasion began, the agency’s tally showed today.
- Milica Cosic
BREAKING: Brit fighters Aiden Aslin & Shaun Pinner face 20 YEARS in prison
CAPTURED Brit fighters Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner face 20 years behind bars after "pleading guilty" in a pro-Russian court.
The two volunteers who have been fighting alongside the Ukrainian army since the start of the war in February were accused by Russian forces of being mercenaries – charges which can carry the death penalty.
Aslin and Pinner pleaded guilty to "training in order to carry out terrorist activities" according to a video released by DPR Supreme Court, Russian state media report.
Aiden Aslin, 28, from Nottinghamshire and Shaun Pinner, 48, from Bedfordshire are being held in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic – a breakaway region in the east of Ukraine.
Both men – who have lived in the country since 2018 – say they were serving with regular military units in Mariupol and so should be protected as prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention.
- Milica Cosic
Russia claims to have shot down Ukrainian missiles in Kherson
Russia has claimed to have shot down three Ukrainian missiles in the outskirts of the city of Kherson.
Russia's foreign ministry has today claimed three Tochka-U missiles were fired on the region by Ukrainian nationalists.
The southern city of Kherson was the first in Ukraine to fall into Russian hands.
- Milica Cosic
Ukraine's ministry shares pics of soldiers sleeping in 'cold trenches'
The Ukrainian foreign ministry has shared a heart-breaking and emotional photo showing two soldiers curled up asleep in a trench.
"These Ukrainian defenders in their positions. They sleep in cold trenches so we can sleep in our homes," the ministry said.
- Milica Cosic
Ukraine aide hits out at Merkel defence of Russia policy
Ukraine has today criticised comments by former German chancellor Angela Merkel – who has insisted she was not naive in her dealings with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The veteran leader frequently met with Putin during her 16 years in power and championed a commerce-driven, pragmatic approach towards Moscow.
In her first major interview since stepping down six months ago, Merkel said on Tuesday she had "nothing to apologise for" and that Moscow's February 24 invasion was "a turning point".
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak responded Thursday by criticising Merkel for deepening Europe's reliance on Russian energy.
"If Chancellor Merkel always knew that Russia was planning a war and Putin's goal is to destroy the EU, then why would (Germany) build the Nord Stream 2 (pipeline)," he wrote on Twitter, referring to the now-scuppered gas pipeline connecting Russia with Germany.
Podolyak said Merkel had "shoved" Europe towards increased dependency on Russian energy supplies and asked: "Why does Germany have to fix this mistake now?"
Germany became hugely reliant on Russian energy imports on Merkel's watch, and she long irked Western allies with her backing for the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline that was to double Russian gas deliveries to Germany.
- Milica Cosic
Russia has stolen 600,000 tonnes of grain, Ukrainian producers say
Russia has stolen about 600,000 tonnes of grain from occupied Ukrainian territory and exported some of it, the deputy head of Ukrainian agriculture producers union UAC said on Wednesday.
Ukraine will demand Russia compensate for both the theft of the grain and the destruction of the property of farmers, UAC deputy head Denys Marchuk told Ukrainian television.
"To date, about 600,000 tonnes have been stolen from agricultural companies and taken to the temporarily occupied territory of the Crimean Peninsula and from there it moves to ports, in particular to Sevastopol, and from there, ships go to the Middle East," Marchuk said.
He added that about 100,000 tonnes of grain had already been trans-shipped in Syria, according to evidence "recorded by the USA".
He provided no additional detail. Reuters – who reported this first – was not able to verify the claims.
- Milica Cosic
Kyiv: 'Russian aggression' – not sanctions – fuelling grain crisis
Ukraine has today said that Moscow's invasion was responsible for a global grain crisis, dismissing Russian claims that Western sanctions on Moscow had sent prices soaring.
"We have been actively communicating, the president and myself, about the true cause of this crisis: it is Russian aggression, not sanctions," Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said during a briefing with Ukrainian journalists released on social media.
- Milica Cosic
Ukraine & Russia exchange bodies of dead soldiers
The Ukrainian Ministry of Reintegration has said today that Ukraine and Russia have exchanged the bodies of 50 dead soldiers.
In a Facebook post, the authority added that 37 of the fighters were killed at Mariupol's Azovstal steel works.
"On the front line in the Zaporizhzhya region, an exchange of bodies of dead soldiers between Ukraine and Russia under the formula 50 by 50," the ministry said.
"The process of returning the bodies of dead Ukrainian soldiers is ongoing."
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