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3 min read . Updated: 31 May 2022, 05:07 PM IST The Biden administration plans to provide Ukraine with precision-guided rocket systems, which could arrive within weeks
Russian forces took parts of the eastern Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk on Tuesday following street fighting with Ukrainian defenders, boosting Moscow’s control over one of Kyiv’s last cities in the Donbas area, the recent focus of its Ukraine offensive.
Russia has intensified its push to take the strategically important city as Western leaders have taken new measures to punish Moscow for its invasion. The Biden administration plans to provide Ukraine with precision-guided rocket systems to boost Ukraine’s firepower against Russian troops.
It is unclear how many of the new systems, which U.S. officials say can hit targets from a distance of 40 miles or more, the U.S. would provide, but one official said they could arrive in Ukraine within weeks. Training on how to use them would begin quickly and would take at least 10 days.
Western governments have hoped that the steady flow of weapons to the Kyiv government could change the calculus of the battle in eastern Ukraine, where Russia wants to capture Donbas, once Ukraine’s industrial heartland, which borders Russia.
“The Russian army is trying to gather overwhelming forces in certain areas to put more and more pressure on our defenders," said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in an address late Monday. “There, in the Donbas, the Russian army has gathered the maximum combat power."
The Russian-backed leader of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic, Leonid Pasechnik, told the Russian state-run TASS news agency on Tuesday that a third of Severodonetsk is controlled by separatist forces. Video from Chechen fighters allied with Russia in the city showed soldiers moving unimpeded in the city center. The Luhansk region and neighboring Donetsk make up the Donbas area.
The fall of Severodonetsk would put the Russians closer to their goal of controlling Donbas, though Russia’s assault on the city has come at a high price for its armed forces suffering from a lack of manpower following its failed attempt to take Kyiv.
“Street fighting continues in Severodonetsk," said Luhansk region governor Serhiy Haidai, adding that Ukrainian forces were trying to drive Russian troops to the city’s outskirts.
Should Ukraine cede Severodonetsk to the Russians, Kyiv’s troops will likely fall back to the neighboring city of Lysychansk, which overlooks Severodonetsk from across the Siverskyi Donets river.
The European Union said Monday that it would introduce a sixth sanctions package that would include an embargo on Russian oil over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The embargo would include an exemption for oil delivered from Russia via pipelines, an amount that makes up one-third of EU oil purchases from Russia. EU officials said that by the end of this year, the embargo would cover 90% of previous Russian oil imports. It would be phased in over several months.
Russia cut off natural gas deliveries to partially state-owned Dutch energy firm GasTerra after it refused to pay in rubles as demanded by Moscow following its invasion of Ukraine.
The company, which is 50%-owned by the Dutch government, joins Poland, Bulgaria and Finland, who had their gas supplies suspended by Russia over the payment mechanism. Some of Europe’s biggest natural-gas utilities, however, have agreed to new payment terms with Russia’s Gazprom PJSC.