The News Journal

Weeks of intense clashes between Russian forces and Ukrainian fighters have turned Severodonetsk and Lysychansk into “dead cities”, President Volodymyr Zelenkyy said. The two cities nestled in the Donbas industrial heartland of Ukraine are being bombarded by heavy Russian shelling and fierce street-to-street battles have broken out between invading troops and fighters loyal to Kyiv. Fourteen weeks into the invasion, Moscow is pushing to capture the cities so it can take full control of the Luhansk region and tout it as a war victory. A Ukrainian official on Tuesday said street fighting continued to rage in the flashpoint city of Severodonetsk and that the situation was changing “every hour”. Just days ago, Moscow seemed close to taking the strategic industrial hub but Ukrainian forces have managed to stand their ground. Read More : https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/europe/2022/06/07/weeks-of-fighting-in-ukraine-turn-severodonetsk-and-lysychansk-into-dead-cities/

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday that 14,000 people had died in fighting in Ukraine’s east since 2014. Before Russia’s February 24 invasion, Moscow-backed separatists have been battling Ukraine in the Donbas region since 2014, the same year the Kremlin seized Crimea. Mr Zelenskyy said that the world’s lack of response to that conflict implied to Russia that “they can afford this large-scale war". He said the Donbas has been a focus for Russia and now “troops are destroying it as if they wanted only stones left, without any people at all". “These 50 days showed me world leaders in a different way," Mr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address on Instagram. "The countries are different. I have seen great generosity from those who are not rich themselves. I have seen extraordinary determination by those who world leaders usually didn’t take seriously. "I have seen that the democratic world has indeed those whose will is enough to defend f...