Moscow on Tuesday warned Lithuania of “serious” consequences for its in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, as Kremlin forces advanced into Ukraine’s strategic Donbass region.
The dispute over Lithuania, the arrival of sophisticated German weapons in the Ukrainian arsenal and an imminent decision on Kyiv’s application to join the European Union threaten to further escalate tensions between the West and Moscow.
Meanwhile, Kremlin troops were gaining ground in Donbass, causing “catastrophic destruction” in Lysychansk, an industrial city at the forefront of recent clashes, the region’s governor said. Ukraine has confirmed that Russia has taken the frontline village of Toshkivka.
READ MORE
Governor Sergiy Gaiday said “every town and village” in Ukrainian hands in the Luhansk region was “under almost continuous fire”.
Since being pushed back from Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine after its invasion in February, Moscow has focused its offensive on the Donbass region.
In the eastern city of Sloviansk, which could become a hotspot as Russian troops advance from the north, locals were preparing to resist attacks and authorities said the community would fight back.
“We think they’re going to beat the Russian scum,” 63-year-old Valentina said of local Ukrainian forces.
Irina, 35, cooks cottage cheese in the wood-burning stove of her ruined house in the village of Novoselivka, outside Chernigiv in Ukraine. Source: Getty / SERGEI CHUZAVKOV/AFP via Getty Images
‘Serious consequences
The war of words between Russia and EU member Lithuania escalated on Tuesday, with Moscow swearing “serious” consequences over Vilnius’ restrictions on rail traffic to the Kaliningrad enclave which borders Lithuania and Poland.
Lithuania says it simply adheres to EU-wide sanctions against Moscow, but Russia has hit back, accusing Brussels of “escalation”.
Moscow has summoned the EU ambassador to Russia. Its foreign ministry said Lithuania’s actions “violate relevant legal and political obligations of the European Union”.
“Russia will certainly respond to such hostile actions,” Security Council chief Nikolai Patrushev told a regional security meeting in Kaliningrad.
READ MORE
The United States has made clear its commitment to Lithuania as a NATO ally, which views an attack on one member as an attack on all.
“We stand with our NATO allies and we stand with Lithuania,” US State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters in Washington.
As US-Russian tensions soar, the State Department confirmed on Tuesday that a second American, Stephen Zabielski, 52, was killed fighting for Ukraine.
Two other Americans were captured last week in eastern Ukraine.
A White House spokesman, John Kirby, expressed alarm at Russian statements that it would not apply the Geneva Conventions on the humane treatment of prisoners to the couple.
“It’s appalling that an official in Russia is even proposing the death penalty for two American citizens who were in Ukraine,” Kirby told reporters.
Spain also said one of its citizens fighting for Ukraine had been killed, without giving further details.
Ukraine sought to join the European Union after failing to join NATO.
Ministers united on Tuesday to grant candidate status to Ukraine as well as Moldova ahead of an official green light later this week, said French Europe Minister Clément Beaune, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the EU.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who found hero status in Europe for resisting the invasion, said he was working on the phone to drum up support for EU membership.
“I will do everything to ensure that a historic decision by the European Union is approved. It is important for us,” he said in a daily address.
READ MORE
“Major losses”
Western nations have pumped billions of dollars worth of weapons into Ukraine, where Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov tweeted that powerful German-made Panzerhaubitze 2000 howitzer artillery pieces had reached his country’s forces.
Russia said on Tuesday it had rebuffed a Ukrainian attempt to retake the symbolic Snake Island, a small territory in the Black Sea captured by Russian forces on the first day of the invasion.
Besides Toshkivka, Ukraine said it had lost control of the eastern village of Metyolkine, a settlement adjacent to Severodonetsk that has been at the center of fighting for weeks and is now largely under Russian control.
A chemical plant in Severodonetsk where hundreds of civilians are said to have taken refuge was under constant bombardment, Ukrainian officials said.
READ MORE
But Defense Ministry spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk told Ukrainian television that Russian forces had suffered “significant losses” in the Severodonetsk region.
Ukraine said on Tuesday it rammed an oil drilling rig in the Black Sea off the Crimean peninsula because Russia was using it as a military installation.
The platform had Russian garrisons and equipment for air defense, radar warfare and reconnaissance, Sergiy Bratchuk of the Odessa regional military administration said in an online briefing.
Russian shelling killed 15 people, including an eight-year-old child, in the Kharkiv region of eastern Ukraine on Tuesday, its governor said.
On the sea, the Russian navy is blocking ports, which Ukraine says prevents millions of tons of grain from being shipped to world markets, contributing to soaring food prices.
Before the war, Ukraine was a major exporter of wheat, corn and sunflower oil.
Moscow denies Western accusations that it is responsible for the disruption of deliveries.
Turkish media have reported that Russian, Ukrainian and UN officials will meet next week in Istanbul to try to unblock grain exports from the Black Sea.
Search for responsibility
Ukraine, its Western backers and the International Criminal Court have all vowed to hold the war to account.
A search for bodies remains ongoing in the Kyiv region, where the police chief said 1,333 civilians have been discovered and 300 people are still missing.
US Attorney General Merrick Garland traveled to Ukraine on Tuesday to discuss the prosecution of individuals implicated in war crimes.
“There is no place to hide,” Mr Garland said.
READ MORE
Ukraine’s Attorney General Iryna Venediktova said Kyiv was looking for special equipment and expertise from the United States, including to recover assets.
Legal support is just as necessary “as the supply of weapons to fight with the Russian Federation, which is committing unprecedented and large-scale atrocities against the civilian population of our state”, she wrote on Facebook.
Denmark and Sweden have meanwhile become the latest European countries to warn of possible gas supply problems.
Ukraine called the reasons given for cutting Russia’s gas supply to European customers “farcical” and “illegal”.
Larry A. Watts
5 min read
