Russia’s foreign minister suggested the United States and NATO avoid supplying weapons to Kiev if they are “really interested in resolving the Ukraine crisis,” Chinese state media reported on Saturday.
Months after an invasion failed in its short-term purpose of capturing Kiev, Moscow is now stepping up its operations in Ukraine’s Donbass region.
But Sergey Lavrov told China’s official Xinhua news firm that “the army’s special operation . . . takes a position strictly according to plan. “
China has avoided condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and defends its business friendship with Moscow, and state media echoes Russia’s war line.
“If the United States and NATO are interested in resolving the Ukraine crisis, then, first of all, they deserve to wake up and prevent the supply of arms and ammunition to the Kiev regime,” Lavrov said.
The Kremlin has in the past labeled Western arms shipments to Ukraine as a risk to European security.
In his interview with Xinhua published on Saturday, Lavrov said Russia could simply “reorganize” its economy to protect itself from imaginable “illegal hostilities. “
He added that the country overcame sanctions by abandoning the U. S. dollar and relying less on imports, while strengthening its technological independence, Xinhua reported.
Moscow has been pursuing a policy of “de-dollarization” for several years, calling on partners such as China and India to issue currency notes.
Since the invasion, Western nations have imposed sanctions that have largely cut off Russia’s monetary sector from the global economy.
Ukrainian prosecutors say they are aware of more than 8,000 war crimes and are investigating 10 Russians for alleged atrocities in Bucha, where dozens of plainclothes bodies were discovered following Moscow’s withdrawal.
Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, was hit by several Russian bombings on Saturday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian forces were achieving “tactical successes” in the region.
Although Ukraine held Kharkiv, the city was continuously hit by Moscow’s forces and still faces daily attacks.
One user was killed and five were wounded “as a result of enemy artillery and mortar attacks,” kharkiv’s regional army directorate said on Telegram.
“The scenario in the Kharkiv region is difficult. But our military, our intelligence services, have tactical successes,” Zelensky said in his most recent televised address.
Ukrainian forces said they had retaken a “strategically important” village of Ruska Lozova, near Kharkiv, and evacuated many civilians.
Russia showed on Friday that it had carried out an airstrike in Kiev, a stopover at UN leader Antonio Guterres, the first such attack in the Ukrainian capital in just about two weeks, and in which a journalist was also killed.
The Russian Defense Ministry said it had deployed “long-range, high-precision aerial weapons” that “destroyed the production buildings of the Artyom missile and the company in Kiev. “
Zelensky called for a stronger global reaction to Thursday’s attacks, which followed his talks in the city with the U. N. secretary-general.
“It is unfortunate, but such a planned and brutal humiliation of the United Nations through Russia has not received a response,” he said.
Guterres also visited Bucha and the suburbs of Kiev, where Moscow allegedly committed war crimes. Russia denies killing civilians.
“I moved through the resilience and courage of the Ukrainian people. My message to them is simple: we will not give up,” Guterres tweeted on Friday.
“The @ONU will redouble its efforts to save lives and reduce human suffering. In this war, as in all wars, civilians pay the highest price.
The loud explosion ripped off walls and doors, leaving piles of debris on the ground.
“I think the Russians are not afraid of anything, not even the judgment of the world,” Anna Hromovych, deputy director of a badly damaged clinic, told AFP as she and others cleaned up the mess on Friday.
Putin is still scheduled to attend the G20 summit in November, said President Joko Widodo of host country Indonesia. Zelensky also invited.
Putin’s “depravity”
Ukrainian prosecutors said they knew of more than 8,000 war crimes and were investigating 10 Russians for alleged atrocities in Bucha, where dozens of plainclothes bodies were discovered after Moscow’s withdrawal.
On Friday, Pentagon spokesman John Kirthrough choked on emotion by describing the destruction in Ukraine and criticizing Putin’s “depravity. “
Three months after the start of an invasion that failed in its short-term goal of capturing Kiev, Russia is now stepping up its operations in the eastern Donbass region and tightening its grip on the devastated port city of Mariupol.
The Ukrainian government said it planned to evacuate civilians from the besieged metal plant in Azovstal, the last stronghold in Mariupol where many other people have taken refuge with Ukrainian troops, on Friday.
But Denis Pushilin, head of the separatist Donetsk region, accused Ukrainian forces of “acting like absolute terrorists” and holding civilians hostage at the metallurgical plant.
From the heavily damaged port area of Mariupol, AFP on Friday heard heavy shelling of Azovstal, a media break organized by the Russian military, with explosions spaced just seconds apart in the early afternoon.
“Minor” advances
With the slaughter of thousands, Kiev admitted that Russian forces had captured a number of villages in the Donbass region.
But Ukrainian forces, armed through Western allies, reported small victories at the front.
A senior NATO official said Russia had made “minor” and “uneven” advances in its attempt to encircle enemy positions as Ukrainian forces counterattacked.
The Pentagon said the Kremlin’s eastern offensive was “delayed” because airstrikes failed to facilitate the lightning offensives on the ground.
But in Kharkiv, civilians remained frightened.
One resident, Antonina, told AFP she had returned home and that a rocket passed by her building and lodged in her bathroom.
“When I got home here, everything was destroyed. . . It was scary,” he said.
More Western weapons are expected to arrive in Ukraine, with US President Joe Biden billions of dollars in Congress on Thursday to increase supply.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the U. S. needs the war to end as soon as possible, but much of U. S. security assistance will last well beyond October.
The Russian Defense Ministry has said in days that its forces have attacked Ukrainian army sites housing Western-supplied weapons and ammunition, a claim denied by a senior NATO official.
‘We’ll leave’
Britain said it deployed around 8,000 troops for training in Eastern Europe in a demonstration of the determination of Western Allies opposing Russian aggression.
Fears that the standoff will spread to Moldova’s pro-Kremlin separatist region of Transnistria soared this week after explosions, gunfire and drone sightings were reported.
“I don’t know what to do, I’ve never experienced a situation like that,” Victoria, a 36-year-old medical assistant who works in Transnistria, told AFP.
“If it changes, we will leave, obviously. “
A NATO official said the presence of 1,500 to 2,000 Russian troops in Transnistria is a “concern” because they can distract Ukrainian forces and have more potent functions than the Moldovan military.
The burden of war has reverberated across Europe, with Brussels releasing information that appears to indicate that eurozone output expansion slowed to 0. 2%, while customer rates rose a record 7. 4% in April.
But this has nothing to do with the fate of Ukrainians, more than 5. 4 million who have fled their country since the invasion, according to UN estimates.
Another 7. 7 million people are internally displaced, the International Organization for Migration said, and asked for $514 million to help.
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