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...

  President Vladimir Putin’s ambition to take control of Ukraine and make it part of Russia looks doomed after a string of atrocities, a former British ambassador to Moscow has said. The trail of death, torture and destruction which Russian soldiers left behind when retreating from towns and cities around Kyiv shocked the world and drew international condemnation. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Mr Putin of genocide after a mass grave containing at least 57 bodies was found in Bucha, a city 16 miles north-west of the capital. The remains of five men showing signs of torture were also discovered in the basement of a children’s health centre, Ukraine’s prosecutor general’s office said. “Torture chamber was discovered in a children's sanatorium in Bucha by prosecutors and Kyiv Regional police officers,” prosecutor Iryna Venediktova said on Twitter. Tanya Nedashkivs'ka, 57, mourns the death of her husband, killed in Bucha, a city northwest of Kyiv, on Monday.  Hum...

 Russia will seek payment in roubles for gas sales from "unfriendly" countries, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday. The announcement sent European gas prices soaring on concerns that the move would exacerbate the region's energy crisis. European countries' dependence on Russian gas to heat their homes and power their economies has been thrown into the spotlight since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, and the imposition of western sanctions to isolate Russia economically. Russian President Vladimir Putin at an online Cabinet meeting on March 23. Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP With the financial noose tightening and the EU split on whether to impose sanctions on Russia's energy sector, Mr Putin hit back with a clear message: if you want our gas, buy our currency. "Russia will continue, of course, to supply natural gas in accordance with volumes and prices ... fixed in previously concluded contracts," he said in a televised meeting...

 Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely to be using nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles against Ukrainian targets to detract from his army’s lack of progress almost a month into the war, Britain has said. Moscow this week claimed its first use of the hypersonic Kinzhal, or Dagger, a domestically made weapon which it says has a range of more than 2,000 kilometres. The weapons – which are launched from the air, most likely by a MiG-31 warplane – were used to destroy a large underground arms depot in western Ukraine. Britain’s Ministry of Defence said Mr Putin had resorted to unprecedented tactics in a desperate bid to draw attention from his dismal operation. On Tuesday, day 27 of the invasion, Russian troops were continuing their battle to capture Kyiv. Gen Lord Richard Dannatt, former head of the British armed forces, said invading troops fighting to take the capital were “hunkering down” and on the defensive while coming up against heavy resistance from Ukrainian soldiers and ...