Russia-Ukraine war: Russia has ‘completely destroyed’ Donbas and turned region into ‘hell’, says Zelenskiy – live
Russia has turned Donbas region into ‘hell’, Zelenskiy says
Russia is engaged in a “deliberate and criminal attempt to kill as many Ukrainians as possible,” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said in his latest nightly address, accusing Moscow of committing genocide.
He also said Russian forces had turned the Donbas region, where they are currently focusing their efforts, into “hell” and said they had killed “many” people in the Chernihiv region in northern Ukraine. There was no “military explanation” for the killing and destruction, he said.
In Donbas, the occupiers are trying to increase pressure. There’s hell, and that’s not an exaggeration.
The brutal and absolutely pointless bombing of Severodonetsk … 12 dead and dozens wounded in just one day. The bombing and shelling of other cities, the air and missile strikes of the Russian army – all this is not just hostilities during the war.
Russian strikes at the Chernihiv region, in particular the terrible strike at Desna, debris clearance continues, many dead; constant strikes at the Odesa region, at the cities of central Ukraine, Donbas is completely destroyed – all this doesn’t and cannot have any military explanation for Russia.
This is a deliberate and criminal attempt to kill as many Ukrainians as possible. Destroy as many houses, social facilities and enterprises as possible.
This is what will be qualified as the genocide of the Ukrainian people and for which the occupiers will definitely be brought to justice.
Here are some of the latest images that we have been sent from Mariupol over the newswires.
The governor of Lviv, Maksym Kozytskiy, has posted to Telegram to report that it was a quiet night in the region. He said there had been one air alert and added: “Thank you to our air defence forces that the sky over Lviv region remained calm.”
Lviv is in the far west of Ukraine, away from the main military theatre in the Donbas to the east of the country.
The Ukrainian MP Lesia Vasylenko has been interviewed by Sky News in the UK, and has accused Russia of shelling “for the sake of shelling” in the Luhansk region. She accused the Russian forces of purposefully making it difficult to leave areas of conflict. She said:
They’re just shelling the cities in the Luhansk region for the sake of shelling, and of inflicting fear and more pain and tragedy among the population in an effort to make the people surrender.
She said she could not see an end to war, adding: “I personally do not believe in no peaceful resolution.”
I don’t see how it could be possible at this point in time, when both sides are extremely fired up to go on to the end. And the Russians with the propaganda that we hear coming from Russia, set on killing every single Ukrainian.
But, she said, it was down to Russian president Vladimir Putin.
He is the one who has started this war back in 2014. He is the one who gave the orders to escalate on the 24 February this year. And he is the one who can make the decision to actually sit down at proper negotiations and see what can be done to end this war.
Vasylenko had a defiant message for Russia, saying:
We as a nation are united around the fact that we fight until the victory of Ukraine. Right until the very last Russian soldier leaves the territory of Ukraine and is pushed back beyond the borders and back into Russia. Because we are fighting for our land and we want to live as a free and independent country.
Serhiy Gaidai, Ukraine’s governor of Luhansk, has given a short update on the situation in Severodonetsk. He writes on Telegram:
The Russians are shelling Severodonetsk very powerfully. Up to 15,000 people remain in bomb shelters. Wells in the old districts of the city were preserved to provide people with water. All mobile towers are de-energized. 70% of high-rise buildings are destroyed or damaged, many of them need to be demolished and new ones built.
Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for Russia’s foreign ministry, has just published a broadside on Telegram about Sweden’s move to join Nato. Claiming that there is little popular support for the move within Sweden, she asks why there is no referendum to be held on the change in policy. She accuses Sweden of being a puppet of the US, writing:
Speaking of “friends”, it is notable that US senators were visiting Stockholm on the day the “historic” decision was announced. Not rank-and-file congressmen, but leader of the Senate Republicans Mitch McConnell. Sweden has not yet joined the alliance, but the Americans are already dictating to the Swedish authorities what to say to their people. And this is just a demo of what is in store for them.
More than 200 years of neutrality, which guaranteed the Kingdom’s security and prosperity, are now history.
So why wasn’t there a referendum? Just because no one has been consulting Swedish public’s opinion on anything for a long time now. The Americans call the shots for the Swedes.
Russian shelling in Ukraine’s eastern region of Luhansk has killed 13 civilians over the past 24 hours, the regional governor, Serhiy Gaidai, has said according to Reuters.
Twelve were killed in the town of Sievierodonesk, where a Russian assault has been unsuccessful, he said. The town and the city of Lysychansk are in an area where Russian troops have launched an offensive.
More reporting well worth reading is the New York Times’ investigation of atrocities allegedly committed by Russian forces in Bucha, outside Kyiv. A warning that this report also contains distressing video and images.
The US paper has uncovered fresh video evidence tying Russian forces to the execution of eight Ukrainian captives on 4 March.
Moscow has repeatedly denied reports of wrongdoing during its occupation of the town and the Times said Russia’s ministries of defence and foreign affairs did not respond to fresh requests for comment.
A Russian senator has claimed that the reason for Russia’s slow progress in Ukraine is because its forces are basically fighting against fellow Russians, the BBC’s Francis Scarr reports.
Russia’s “special military operation” was proceeding with “quite some difficulty”, Frants Klintsevich said on Russian state television, adding that he didn’t want to offend anyone.
However, he reasoned, the slow progress was because “we’re fighting one of the strongest and best trained armies. We’re fighting against Russian soldiers and officers with exactly the same mentality as ours.”
Russian senator Frants Klintsevich has an ingenious new excuse for his country’s slow progress in Ukraine
He says Ukraine’s army is “one of the strongest and best-trained” because it’s comprised of “Russian soldiers and officers with exactly our mentality”
(with subtitles) pic.twitter.com/TgYqbLX5BW
— Francis Scarr (@francis_scarr) May 19, 2022
Once Russia has secured Mariupol it will likely redeploy forces there to the Donbas, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said in its latest intelligence update, adding that due to the pressure Russian commanders are under however, they will probably do so “without adequate preparation”.
Staunch Ukrainian resistance in Mariupol since the start of the war means Russian forces in the area must be re-equipped and refurbished before they can be redeployed effectively. This can be a lengthy process when done thoroughly.
Russian commanders, however, are under pressure to demonstrably achieve operational objectives. This means that Russia will probably redistribute their forces swiftly without adequate preparation, which risks further force attrition.
The MoD said up to 1,700 Ukrainian fighters in Mariupol’s Azovstal steel plant had surrendered in recent days, with an unknown number still inside.
In case you missed it, it is really worth checking out this extraordinary report from AP, based on the bodycam recordings of a Mariupol medic that were smuggled out in March by an AP team, the last international journalists in the city. A warning though, that the report contains graphic imagery and distressing scenes.
Yuliia Paievska is well known within Ukraine under the name Taira and was a member of the Ukraine Invictus Games for military veterans, where she was set to compete in archery and swimming. She had been given the camera in 2021 to film for a Netflix documentary series on inspirational figures being produced by Britain’s Prince Harry.
But when Russian forces invaded, she used it to shoot scenes of injured civilians and soldiers instead.
On 16 March, the day after she handed the camera’s data card to AP, Taira was captured by Russian forces, along with her driver, Serhiy. The last time she was seen was in a Russian news broadcast on 21 March, in which she reads a statement calling for an end to the fighting.
US Senate approves $40bn aid package for Ukraine
The US Senate has overwhelmingly approved a $40bn infusion of military and economic aid for Ukraine and its allies as both parties rallied behind America’s latest, and quite possibly not last, financial salvo against Russia’s invasion.
The 86-11 vote gave final congressional approval to the package, three weeks after Joe Biden requested a smaller $33bn version and after a lone Republican opponent delayed Senate passage for a week.
Another important day for 🇺🇦victory. The 🇺🇲 Senate has approved allocation of aid to 🇺🇦 in the amount of almost $ 40 billion.The G7 and int. fin. institutions have agreed to allocate $ 18.4 billion for 🇺🇦 for the next 3 months. These are decisive steps in defense of Freedom.
— Defence of Ukraine (@DefenceU) May 20, 2022
Every voting Democrat and all but 11 Republicans – including many of the chamber’s supporters of Donald Trump’s isolationist agenda – backed the measure.
“Help is on the way, really significant help. Help that could make sure that the Ukrainians are victorious,” said the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, underscoring a goal that seemed nearly unthinkable when Russia launched its assault in February.
More on the US package here:
Russia has turned Donbas region into ‘hell’, Zelenskiy says
Russia is engaged in a “deliberate and criminal attempt to kill as many Ukrainians as possible,” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said in his latest nightly address, accusing Moscow of committing genocide.
He also said Russian forces had turned the Donbas region, where they are currently focusing their efforts, into “hell” and said they had killed “many” people in the Chernihiv region in northern Ukraine. There was no “military explanation” for the killing and destruction, he said.
In Donbas, the occupiers are trying to increase pressure. There’s hell, and that’s not an exaggeration.
The brutal and absolutely pointless bombing of Severodonetsk … 12 dead and dozens wounded in just one day. The bombing and shelling of other cities, the air and missile strikes of the Russian army – all this is not just hostilities during the war.
Russian strikes at the Chernihiv region, in particular the terrible strike at Desna, debris clearance continues, many dead; constant strikes at the Odesa region, at the cities of central Ukraine, Donbas is completely destroyed – all this doesn’t and cannot have any military explanation for Russia.
This is a deliberate and criminal attempt to kill as many Ukrainians as possible. Destroy as many houses, social facilities and enterprises as possible.
This is what will be qualified as the genocide of the Ukrainian people and for which the occupiers will definitely be brought to justice.
Summary and welcome
Hello, I’m Helen Livingstone, welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine.
A roundup of the most recent developments:
- Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said the Donbas, where Russia is now concentrating its main effort, has been “completely destroyed”. “There’s hell, and that’s not an exaggeration,” he said in his nightly address. “The bombing and shelling of other cities, the air and missile strikes of the Russian army – all this is not just hostilities during the war.”
- US secretary of state Antony Blinken has accused Russia of using “food as a weapon” by blockading Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. But Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president and now senior security official, says the west should not expect Russia to continue food supplies if it slaps Moscow with devastating sanctions over Ukraine. “ Things don’t work like that, we’re not idiots.”
- Mykhailo Podolyak, Ukraine’s top presidential adviser and a member of the negotiating team, said a ceasefire with Russia was “impossible without total Russian troops withdrawal”. Podolyak said Kyiv was not interested in a new “Minsk”, referring to the 2015 Minsk agreement, brokered by France and Germany, which attempted to secure a ceasefire between the Ukrainian government and Russia-backed separatists in the east of Ukraine.
- Russia has said a further 771 Ukrainian troops have “surrendered” at Mariupol’s besieged Azovstal steelworks, bringing the total number to 1,730 this week, while the International Committee of the Red Cross said it had started registering the Ukrainian prisoners of war who left the plant. It is not clear how many remain at the plant.
- Vadim Shishimarin, a 21-year-old tank commander, asked a Ukrainian widow to forgive him for the murder of her husband after pleading guilty on Wednesday to killing an unarmed 62-year-old civilian in the north-east Ukrainian village of Chupakhivka on 28 February.
- Russia’s promise to use lasers to shoot down drones in Ukraine has prompted widespread scepticism that the novel and possibly nuclear-powered weaponry could be deployed on the battlefield or have any significant impact on the war. Zelenskiy described it as a “wunderwaffe” – a nonexistent “wonder weapon” that was originally a propaganda invention of the Nazis.
- The US president, Joe Biden, said Finland and Sweden “meet every Nato requirement and then some” to join the alliance and have the “full, complete backing” of the US. Speaking at a joint press conference at the White House with Sweden’s prime minister, Magdalena Andersson, and Finland’s president, Sauli Niinistö, he also said he was confident Turkey’s concerns regarding their membership could be addressed.
- The former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder will lose some of his post-office privileges after failing to cut his links with Russian energy companies over the Ukraine war, the Bundestag’s budgetary committee has decided. Schröder – chancellor from 1998 to 2005 – will be stripped of his office and staff, which cost about €419,000 ($443,000) in taxpayers’ money in 2021.
- G7 financial leaders have agreed on $18.4bn aid to help Ukraine and said they were ready to stand by Kyiv and “do more as needed”, according to a draft communique seen by Reuters. Finance ministers and central bank governors of the US, Japan, Canada, Britain, Germany, France and Italy are holding talks as Ukraine is running out of cash.
- McDonald’s has reached a deal to sell all its restaurants in Russia to one of its licensees in the country, the businessman Alexander Govor, who will operate them under a new name.
- More than a million Ukrainian refugees have already returned home, according to the country’s ambassador to the UK, Vadym Prystaiko. He said the mayors of Kyiv and Kharkiv had had to tell people not to return to the cities as it was still unsafe.
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