Monthly Archives: May 2022

An increasingly bitter diplomatic row over Germanys unwillingness to supply heavy weaponry to Ukraine threatened to spill into a wider dispute between allies over whether they are prepared to accept a peace settlement that leaves Vladimir Putin capable of claiming victory.

One western official said western leaders are divided between those who think they can work with Vladimir Putins Russia once the war is over, and those who think they cannot.

The row is leading to disputes over the arming of Ukraine, the feasibility of enforcing a Russian oil import embargo and whether Kyiv will have to accept a further loss of territory at the end of the war as the price for peace.

The immediate point of conflict between Ukraine and some of its allies focusses on the supply of weaponry to Ukraine, and the heavy weather Germany seems to be making in setting up an elaborate chain that would see the country supplying armaments to its Eastern neighbours principally Poland and the Czech Republic that would in turn send armoury on to Ukraine.

Kyiv is suffering serious losses due to the absence of long-range weaponry. The commander-in-chief of Ukraines armed forces, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, said the delivery of weapons could not be delayed: We are in great need of weapons that will make it possible to hit the enemy from a long distance.

Citing its sources in Nato, the national news agency, Deutsche Presse Agentur, reported that alliance members have informally agreed not to supply certain weaponry to Ukraine, fearing Russia could see the delivery of tanks and combat aircraft as the west entering the war and take retaliatory measures. Quite what this decision means in practical terms is disputed.

There were also US-sourced reports that Israel had rejected a US request to allow Germany to send Spike anti-tank missiles to Ukraine. Spike missiles are produced in Germany with Israeli technology under an Israeli licence. Since the beginning of Russias large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February, Israel has taken a neutral stance and refused to supply weapons to Ukraine.

The disputes come as some influential US voices, from veteran diplomat Henry Kissinger to the New York Times, have urged Ukraine to realise it may have to lose territory to Putin.

In a reference to the tensions, the UK foreign secretary Liz Truss, a staunch war hawk, warned the West against backsliding and appeasement, insisting the need to supply arms was urgent in a speech in Sarajevo: What we cannot have is any lifting of sanctions, any appeasement, which will simply make Putin stronger in the longer term. She insists private sanctions on Russia cannot be lifted until Putin has completely left Ukraine, and his army is irreversibly weakened. She has strong allies in eastern Europe, and the Baltics, but not in Paris or Berlin.

Truss has argued that any backsliding would result in a more prolonged and painful conflict.

Ukraines foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, adopted an ironic, almost uncomprehending tone at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week about the slowness of arms deliveries: We are pursuing this with strategic patience. I dont understand why this is so difficult. The president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, sensed German reticence stemmed from a desire to rebuild relations with Putin once the war ends. No matter what the Russian state does, there is someone who says: Lets take his interests into account, said Zelenskiy.

Poland has also heavily criticised Germanys slowness, and within Germany the chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has come under attack for appearing not to want either side to emerge victorious from the war, a stance Scholz denies.

Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, chair of the Bundestag Defense Committee and a member of the Free Democrat party, said: It must not be that at the end of the war the world sees Germany as a complete brakeman and loser just because we are unable to organise and communicate.

Early in the conflict Germany proposed quickly supplying Ukraine with heavy weaponry in a ring system whereby eastern European countries such as Poland and the Czech Republic would provide Soviet-era tanks to Ukraine, with these being replenished by modern German Leopard tanks. Whether the failure to achieve this yet is due to bureaucratic inertia, cynical procrastination or a reflection of the depleted state of the German armed forces is hard to unravel. If you are on the frontline, it probably matters little.

In a speech in Davos, Scholz tried to dismiss claims that he did not understand the scale of the issues at stake. He said the 24 February invasion had come like a thunderclap.

He described Putins war as imperialism that is trying to bomb us back to a time when war was a common tool. It is not only the statehood of Ukraine at stake but a world order that binds might to law. He claimed Putin had already missed all of his strategic goals. A capture of all of Ukraine by Russia seems further away today than it was at the beginning of the war. More than ever, Ukraine is emphasising its European future.

He added that our goal is clear. Putin must not win this war. His remarks, insisting there can be no peace dictated by Putin, contrast with those of Boris Johnson, who has always insisted Putin must lose the war and be seen to lose the war.

Truss was one of the first European figures to echo Ukrainian claims that it cannot lose territory in the war, but must regain land lost to Russian separatists since 2014. The Polish president, Andrzej Duda, in Kyiv this week said: Only Ukraine has the right to decide about its future. No decisions can be taken about its future without it. Although there are different voices within the Ukrainian diplomatic landscape, Zelenskiys public position appears to be broadly the same. He told a meeting at Davos that he joined by video link: When Ukraine says it is fighting to regain its territories, it means that Ukraine will fight until it restores all of its territory. It doesnt mean anything else. Its about our sovereignty, our territorial integrity and our independence.

He added: This state of hot hostilities, of bloody war, can only move into diplomatic negotiations with the authentic participation of the Russian and Ukrainian presidents, supported by our strategic partners, when we see that the Russian Federation shows real willingness and desire to move from bloody war to diplomacy. This will be possible only when Russia concedes at least something, such as pulling back troops to the borders as they were on February 24.

At present there does not seem to be any likelihood of Russia signalling such a retreat. Quite the opposite.

But that does not mean countries are not coming forward to offer their mediation services. Italys prime minister, Mario Draghi, for instance, has assembled a complex four-point plan that was formally presented to the UN secretary general, Antnio Guterres.

The first step in the plan would involve a supervised ceasefire and demilitarisation of the frontline. This would be a multilateral negotiation at a conference on the future status of Ukraine, resuscitating the proposal of future Ukrainian neutrality backed by security guarantees provided by major powers. This could give a security umbrella to Ukraine before the end of the peace process, and act as a substitute for Ukraines one-time aspiration to Nato membership.

The next stage would be a bilateral treaty between Ukraine and Russia on border issues. The language of the proposal points to free movement of people and economic life, de facto autonomy for the occupied territories and a single economic zone, as well as civil guarantees for Russian minorities, including over language. This would be very close to the Minsk agreement, a format that France and Germany oversaw and the Ukrainians never liked.

The final stage would be a grand bargain on EU/Nato-Russia relations, revival of strategic stability talks, a new role for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and a revisiting of some of the other issues that were being discussed between the US and Russia last summer.

Russia seemed to take great pleasure in ridiculing both the plan and its proponent. The former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev blasted Draghis proposals: It seems that it was prepared not by diplomats, but by local political scientists who have read provincial newspapers and operate only with Ukrainian fakes. Yet other voices in Russia think there are aspects of the plan that could be adopted later, when both sides have fought themselves to a standstill.

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What hope is there for diplomacy in ending the Russia-Ukraine war? - The Guardian

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) Moscow pressed the West on Thursday to lift sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine, seeking to shift the blame for a growing food crisis that has been worsened by Kyivs inability to ship millions of tons of grain and other agricultural products while under attack.

Britain immediately accused Russia of trying to hold the world to ransom, insisting there would be no sanctions relief, and a top U.S. diplomat blasted the sheer barbarity, sadistic cruelty and lawlessness of the invasion.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi that Moscow is ready to make a significant contribution to overcoming the food crisis through the export of grain and fertilizer on the condition that politically motivated restrictions imposed by the West are lifted, according to a Kremlin readout of the call.

Ukraine is one of the worlds largest exporters of wheat, corn and sunflower oil, but the war and a Russian blockade of its ports have halted much of that flow, endangering world food supplies. Many of those ports are now also heavily mined.

Russia also is a significant grain exporter, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said the West must cancel the unlawful decisions that hamper chartering ships and exporting grain. His comments appeared to be an effort to lump the blockade of Ukrainian exports with what Russia says are its difficulties in moving its own goods.

Western officials have dismissed those claims. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken noted last week that food, fertilizer and seeds are exempt from sanctions imposed by the U.S. and many others and that Washington is working to ensure countries know the flow of those goods should not be affected.

With the war grinding into its fourth month, world leaders have ramped up calls for solutions. World Trade Organization Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said about 25 million tons of Ukrainian grain is in storage and another 25 million tons could be harvested next month.

European countries have tried to ease the crisis by moving grain out of the country by rail but trains can carry only a small fraction of what Ukraine produces, and ships are needed for the bulk of the exports.

At the same time, the Russian Defense Ministry proposed corridors to allow foreign ships to leave ports along the Black Sea, as well as Mariupol on the Sea of Azov.

Mikhail Mizintsev, who heads Russias National Defense Control Center, said 70 foreign vessels from 16 countries were in six ports on the Black Sea, including Odesa, Kherson and Mykolaiv. He did not specify how many might be ready to carry food.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said his country was ready to agree on safe corridors in principle, but it was not sure it could trust Russia to allow safe passage and not send its military vessels sneaking into the harbor to attack Odesa.

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said Putin was trying to hold the world to ransom by demanding some sanctions be lifted before allowing Ukrainian grain shipments to resume.

Hes essentially weaponized hunger and lack of food among the poorest people around the world, Truss said on a visit to Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. What we cannot have is any lifting of sanctions, any appeasement, which will simply make Putin stronger in the longer term.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for imposing even tougher sanctions on Russia, including for the European Union to ban Russian oil and gas.

Pressuring Russia is literally a matter of saving lives, he said in his nightly video address. And every day of delay, weakness, various disputes or proposals to appease the aggressor at the expense of the victim is new Ukrainians killed. And these are new threats to everyone on our continent.

Putin said its impossible, utterly unrealistic in the modern world to isolate Russia. Speaking via video to members of the Eurasian Economic Forum, which is comprised of several ex-Soviet nations, he said those who try would primarily hurt themselves, citing broken food supply chains.

Michael Carpenter, the U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, urged its members to provide Ukraine with what it needs to defend itself against Putins revanchist delusions.

If Russia achieved success in Ukraine, there would be more horrific reports from filtration camps, more forcibly displaced people, more summary executions, more torture, more rape, and more looting, Carpenter said in Vienna.

On the battlefield, Russian forces pressed their offensive in several parts of the eastern Donbas region, Ukraines military said. That industrial heartland of coal mines and factories is now the focus of fighting after Russia suffered a series of setbacks and shifted to more limited goals.

The enemy is storming the position of our troops simultaneously in several directions, said Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar. We have an extremely difficult and long stage of fighting ahead of us.

Kharkiv, Ukraines second-largest city, also came under renewed shelling on Thursday. Zelenskyy said at least nine people were killed and 19 wounded. Among those killed were a five-month-old baby and its father, and the mother was in serious condition.

Military officials said Russian forces continued to try to gain a foothold in the area of Sievierodonetsk, the only part of the Luhansk region in the Donbas under Ukrainian government control.

A senior U.S. defense official said Russia is making incremental progress in the Donbas, with fighting centered on towns and villages as Russian and Ukrainian forces trade control over scraps of land. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the U.S. military assessment, said those smaller artillery duels could be prolonged.

Russia has 110 battalion tactical groups, each with 800 to 1,000 troops, committed to Ukraine, amounting to 80% of Moscows total force, the official said, adding that it has lost 1,000 tanks and three dozen fighter jets and other fixed-wing aircraft.

Zelenskyy pleaded with the West to send multiple launch rocket systems to Ukraine as soon as possible to give it a fighting chance against the Russian offensive in the Donbas.

In other developments:

In the northwestern town of Kotelva, two Russian soldiers accused of war crimes pleaded guilty to shelling civilian infrastructure with a multiple rocket launcher. Alexander Ivanov and Alexander Bobykin could face up to 12 years in prison; the defense asked for eight, saying they were following orders. Bobykin said, I regret the actions our troops committed.

In the ravaged port city of Mariupol, Russia began broadcasting state television news, about a week after the Russian military declared it had completely liberated the city.

A leader of Russia-backed separatists suggested there might be more Ukrainian fighters hiding in Mariupols sprawling Azovstal steelworks, which for weeks stood as the citys last bastion of resistance. The Russian military says 2,439 fighters surrendered from the plant last week. The separatist leader, Denis Pushilin, said more may have been hiding or lost or lagged behind, adding there are already those that have been found and captured.

Alexander Lukashenko, the leader of Russian ally Belarus, said he was sending troops to the border with Ukraine, raising the possibility that he may agree to wider participation in the war. Belarus allowed Russian troops to invade Ukraine from its soil but has not taken part in ground operations.

The Pentagon said one American military officer has gone back to Ukraine as the U.S. reopens its embassy in Kyiv. But Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the colonel is there for diplomatic work, and no other U.S. troops are going into Ukraine at this point.

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Becatoros reported from Kramatorsk, Ukraine. Associated Press writers Andre Rosa in Kharkiv, Ukraine, and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed.

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Russia slams sanctions, seeks to blame West for food crisis - The Associated Press

Ukraine's Ministry of Defense on Thursday posted aerial video of what it said was Russian rockets hitting Ukrainian positions in the eastern part of the country as the 3-month-old war rages on.

The ministry said the video shows a series of rocket blasts hitting targets near Novomykhailivka, in the Donetsk region, triggering shockwaves and large plumes of smoke.

"This is what largest and most horrific war of the 21st century looks like," the Ministry of Defense said.

The ministry added that "Ukraine is ready to strike back" but can only do so it gets NATO-style multiple launch rocket systems "immediately."

Russian forces continued to press their offensive in several parts of the eastern Donbas region, according to the General Staff of the Ukrainian military. That industrial heartland of coal mines and factories is now the focus of fighting after Russia suffered a series of setbacks and shifted to more limited goals.

Regional governors said at least four civilians were killed and seven others injured in shelling Thursday in Ukraine's second-largest city of Kharkiv, while three were killed by attacks in and around the eastern city of Lysychansk, which is a key focus of fighting.

Military officials said Russian forces continued to try to gain a foothold in the area of Sievierodonetsk, which is the only part of the Luhansk region in the Donbas under Ukrainian government control.

In the ravaged port city of Mariupol, Russia began broadcasting state television news, even as a leader of the Russia-backed separatists suggested there might be more Ukrainian fighters hiding in its sprawling Azovstal steelworks that was the focus of weeks of bombardment.

The Russian military declared Azovstal and Mariupol on the whole "completely liberated" on May 20 and reported that 2,439 fighters who had been holed up at the plant had surrendered.

The leader, Denis Pushilin, said some of the fighters may have been hiding, lost or lagged behind those who came out, adding that "there are already those that have been found" and captured.

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Ukraine aerial video shows massive Russian shelling: "What the largest and most horrific war of the 21st century looks like" - CBS News

A man clears debris at a damaged residential building in Kyiv in February, just after Russia started its invasion. DANIEL LEAL/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

A man clears debris at a damaged residential building in Kyiv in February, just after Russia started its invasion.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has already destroyed billions of dollars' worth of infrastructure, blocked exports from key Black Sea ports, and displaced more than 12 million people.

The World Bank predicts the war will cause Ukraine's economy to shrink by 45% this year. And as Russian forces now focus on the Donbass region, the war shows no signs of letting up.

But Ukrainian and Western leaders are already talking about what it would take to rebuild Ukraine, if and when the war ends.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gave a rollcall of devastation in a videoconference in late April: 1,500 educational facilities destroyed or damaged, along with 350 medical facilities, 1,500 miles of roads and 300 bridges. In all, Zelenskyy estimated 32 million square meters of living space had been impacted so far.

"It's not just statistics. This is Mariupol, this is Volnovakha, this is Okhtyrka, this is Chernihiv, this is Borodyanka dozens and dozens of our cities, towns and villages," Zelenskyy said.

It's estimated the cost of rebuilding the country could amount to hundreds of billions of dollars.

Residents of Irpin flee heavy fighting via a destroyed bridge as Russian forces enter the city in March. Chris McGrath/Getty Images hide caption

Residents of Irpin flee heavy fighting via a destroyed bridge as Russian forces enter the city in March.

When it comes to addressing this, one comparison that many leaders are making is the Marshall Plan when the United States distributed more than $13 billion in economic aid after WWII (or more than $150 billion in today's dollars) to rehabilitate the economies of 17 European nations.

To break down what rebuilding Ukraine could cost, how it could be done, and what lessons could be learned from the Marshall plan, NPR spoke to Yuriy Gorodnichenko and Barry Eichengreen, both economists at UC Berkeley.

Gorodnichenko is a Ukrainian economist who recently co-authored a blueprint for the reconstruction of Ukraine, published by the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Eichengreen is an economic historian who has researched Europe's postwar development.

An ongoing study from the Kyiv School of Economics calculates that every week, Ukraine suffers about $4.5 billion worth of damage to civilian infrastructure, and the country's total economic losses could rise to around $600 billion.

"All of us see images of total destruction in Ukraine. You look at big cities like Kharkiv, Mariupol, and barely any building is not damaged," Gorodnichenko said. "But it's not just residential. You see the critical infrastructure is being destroyed: bridges, roads, refineries, steel mills and railroads."

Gorodnichenko said that economists use several methods to put a number on the damage, despite the fog of war.

"One way to look at this is to do an inventory of damaged bridges, buildings and so on and calculate the cost of replacement. That would be easily somewhere between $100- and $200 billion," Gorodnichenko said.

"We can also look at other measures and similar efforts that were done in the past. For example, what was the cost of reconstructing Iraq or Afghanistan? If you look at the size of these countries, the level of damage, and scale it to the Ukrainian case, you come to somewhere between $500 billion, maybe $1 trillion."

Although Russia's invasion has caused massive damage, some experts also see reconstruction as a once-in-a-generation chance to modernize Ukraine.

Gorodnichenko believes the country's newly rebuilt cities should be carbon-neutral and dense, with much needed upgrades to housing and public transport.

He said that when Ukraine gained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, it had spent decades integrated into the Soviet economy, and much of its infrastructure still dated back to that time.

"When you look at energy consumption per unit of GDP, it was one of the highest in the world," Gorodnichenko said. "So that was very bad for the climate, for the economy. Over the years, Ukraine was increasingly more and more efficient, but it was a slow process."

Ukraine's aged, inefficient infrastructure contributed towards pollution and climate change, but it also made the country heavily dependent on Russian oil and natural gas.

"We should really rebuild Ukraine up to modern standards," Gorodnichenko said. "And this is going to be good not only in terms of climate change ... but it also makes Ukraine less vulnerable to future blackmail from Russia ... So you can kill two birds with one stone."

The European Union (E.U.) pledged about 9 billion euros to Ukraine last week in the form of loans. It also committed to setting up a "Rebuilding Ukraine" international platform that would allow countries to donate towards a reconstruction plan "drawn up and implemented by Ukraine, with administrative capacity support and technical assistance by the E.U."

The U.S. and several other nations have announced they support a comprehensive plan for supporting and rebuilding Ukraine. The U.S. Senate passed a $40 billion aid package for Ukraine last week, but Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said at a speech in Brussels that, "Eventually, Ukraine will need massive support and private investment for reconstruction and recovery, akin to the task of rebuilding in Europe after 1945."

"What's clear is that the bilateral and multilateral support announced so far will not be sufficient to address Ukraine's needs, even in the short term," Yellen said.

In addition to support from allied nations, Gorodnichenko said Russian assets seized as a result of sanctions could be used to foot the bill. Yellen, however, said last week that, "While we're beginning to look at this, it would not be legal now in the United States for the government to seize those assets."

A woman and two children leave Ukraine after crossing the Slovak-Ukrainian border in February. PETER LAZAR/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

A woman and two children leave Ukraine after crossing the Slovak-Ukrainian border in February.

Gorodnichenko said the international community could also use historical precedent to find ways to make Russia pay for Ukraine's reconstruction, even if it didn't agree to pay reparations. He said that after WWII, American officials froze Nazi assets in the U.S., and then used those to compensate victims of war crimes.

He also pointed to Iraq, which paid about $50 billion in reparations to Kuwait over 30 years in the form of taxes on its oil to compensate for the damage caused by its invasion in 1990. Gorodnichenko suggested "effectively a tax on Russian energy, and a fraction of that tax is going to flow to Ukraine to pay for the reconstruction."

Both Gorodnichenko and Eichengreen worry, however, that the E.U.'s aid seems to be mostly in the form of loans.

"A country that is destroyed by a big war is not going to have the capacity to repay loans anytime soon," Gorodnichenko said, adding that 90% of the Marshall Plan's aid was given in the form of grants.

Eichengreen said the E.U. had demonstrated it did have the resources to dedicate more funding to Ukraine in the form of grants. He pointed to 2020, when the E.U. borrowed 750 billion euros to establish a recovery fund for the coronavirus pandemic.

"They could do that again if they thought this was a priority," Eichengreen said.

Eichengreen said it wasn't a simple one-to-one comparison, but a lot could still be applied from the Marshall Project to rebuilding Ukraine.

He argues that the international community needs to learn the right lessons from history, rather than simply seeing the Marshall Plan as one giant cash transfer.

Mariupol was devastated by Russian attacks. ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Mariupol was devastated by Russian attacks.

The Marshall Plan succeeded, he said, because it didn't just transfer money. There was a significant exchange of knowledge as European officials, engineers, and workers traveled to the U.S. to understand the latest construction and manufacturing techniques.

Eichengreen said that similarly, Ukraine would need to reverse its skilled brain drain and encourage refugees to return to the country, as well as source engineers from around the world for a massive undertaking.

And Marshall Plan funds actually took a few years to arrive in Europe following WWII. Gorodnichenko said the period from 1945 to 1948 was very painful for Europeans.

"This is why these conversations about the reconstruction of Ukraine should be happening now, so that by the day when the war is over, there is a facility or program or administration already set ready to go," he said. "We should learn from our mistakes and make sure that there is no unnecessary suffering in Ukraine."

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Here's how much it could cost to rebuild Ukraine and who would pay for it - NPR

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) Russian President Vladimir Putin issued an order Wednesday to fast track Russian citizenship for residents of parts of southern Ukraine largely held by his forces, while lawmakers in Moscow passed a bill to strengthen the stretched Russian army.

Putins decree applying to the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions could allow Russia to strengthen its hold on territory that lies between eastern Ukraine, where Moscow-backed separatists occupy some areas, and the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia seized in 2014.

The Russian army is engaged in an intense battle for Ukraines eastern industrial heartland, known as the Donbas. In a sign that the Kremlin is trying to bolster its stretched military machine, Russian lawmakers agreed to scrap the age limit of 40 for those signing their first voluntary military contracts.

A description of the bill on the parliament website indicated older recruits would be allowed to operate precision weapons or serve in engineering or medical positions. The chair of the Russian parliaments defense committee, Andrei Kartapolov, said the measure would make it easier to hire people with in-demand skills.

Russian officials say only volunteer contract soldiers are sent to fight in Ukraine, although they acknowledge that some conscripts were put into the fighting by mistake in the early stages of the war.

Three months into Russias invasion, Putin visited a military hospital in Moscow on Wednesday and met with some soldiers wounded in Ukraine, the Kremlin said in a statement.

It was his first known visit with soldiers fighting in Ukraine since he launched the war on Feb. 24. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has visited wounded soldiers, civilians and children including at times when Russian troops were fighting on the outskirts of Kyiv.

A reporter for the state-run Russia1 TV channel posted a video clip on Telegram showing Putin in a white medical coat talking to a man in hospital attire, presumably a soldier.

The man, filmed from behind standing up and with no visible wounds, tells Putin that he has a son. The president, accompanied by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, responds: He will be proud of his father, before shaking the mans hand.

Zelenskyy reiterated Wednesday that he would be willing to negotiate with Putin directly but said Moscow needs to retreat to the positions it held before the invasion and must show its ready to shift from the bloody war to diplomacy.

I believe it would be a correct step for Russia to make, Zelenskyy told leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, by video link.

He also said Ukraine wants to drive Russian troops out of all captured areas. Ukraine will fight until it reclaims all its territories, Zelenskyy said. Its about our independence and our sovereignty.

In his nightly address to the nation, Zelenskyy strongly rebuffed those in the West who suggest Ukraine cede control of areas occupied by Russian troops for the sake of reaching a peace agreement.

Those great geopoliticians who suggest this are disregarding the interests of ordinary Ukrainians the millions of those who actually live on the territory that they propose exchanging for an illusion of peace, he said. We always have to think of the people and remember that values are not just words.

Zelenskyy compared those who argue for giving Russia a piece of Ukraine to those who in 1938 agreed to cede territory to Hitler in hopes of preventing World War II.

Russia already had a program to expedite the naturalization of people living in Luhansk and Donetsk, the two eastern Ukraine provinces that make up the Donbas and where the Moscow-backed separatists hold large areas as self-declared independent republics.

During a visit to the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions last week, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin indicated they could become part of our Russian family.

A Russia-installed official in the Kherson region has predicted the region would become part of Russia. An official in Zaporizhzhia said Wednesday that the regions pro-Kremlin administration would seek that as well.

Melitopol, the Zaporizhzhia regions second-largest city, plans to start issuing Russian passports in the near future, said the Russia-installed acting mayor, Galina Danilchenko.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who attended the Davos forum in person, called for friendly countries particularly the United States to provide Ukraine with multiple launch rocket systems so it could try to recapture lost territory.

Every day of someone sitting in Washington, Berlin, Paris and other capitals, and considering whether they should or should not do something, costs us lives and territories, Kuleba said.

Zelenskyy said his army was facing the fiercest attack possible in the east by Russian forces, which in some places have many more weapons and soldiers. He pleaded for even more military assistance from the West, without exception, without restrictions. Enough to win.

The governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Haidai, accused Russia of targeting shelters where civilians were hiding in the city of Sievierodonetsk.

The situation is serious, Haidai said in a written response to questions from The Associated Press. The city is constantly being shelled with every possible weapon in the enemys possession.

Sievierodonetsk and nearby Lysychansk are the largest remaining towns held by Ukraine in Luhansk. The region is more than 90% controlled by Russia, Haidai said, adding that a key supply route for Kyivs troops was coming under pressure despite stiff Ukrainian resistance.

Haidai said the road between Lysychansk and the city of Bakhmut to the southwest was constantly being shelled and that Russian sabotage and reconnaissance teams were approaching.

The governor of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said four civilians were injured when two rockets hit the town of Pokrovsk early Wednesday.

One strike left a crater at least three meters (10 feet) deep, with the remnants of what appeared to be a rocket still smoldering. A row of low terraced houses near the strike suffered significant damage.

Theres no place to live in left. Everything is smashed, Viktoria Kurbonova, a mother of two who lived in one of the terraced houses, said.

An earlier strike about a month ago blew out the windows, which were replaced with plastic sheeting. Kurbonova thinks that probably saved their lives since there was no glass flying around.

In other developments, Russia said the strategic Ukrainian port of Mariupol was functional again following a nearly three-month siege that ended with the surrender last week of the last Ukrainian fighters holed up in a giant steel plant. Russia now has full control of Mariupol, on the Sea of Azov.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said the separatists in Donetsk planned to set up a tribunal to put the fighters on trial and that Moscow welcomes the action.

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Elena Becatoros in Pokrovsk, Ukraine, and Jamey Keaten in Davos, Switzerland, contributed to this report.

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Follow APs coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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Russia takes steps to bolster army, tighten grip on Ukraine - The Associated Press

Officials in Ukraine have admitted that Russia has the upper hand in fighting in the countrys east, as Ukrainian forces fell back from some of their positions in the Donbas region.

Amid reports that Lyman, the site of an important railway junction, had largely been taken by Russian forces, Ukraines general staff reported that Russian forces were also advancing on Sievierodonetsk, Bakhmut and Avdiivka.

The governor of Luhansk region, Serhiy Haidai, said just 5% of the region now remained in Ukrainian hands down from about 10% little more than a week ago and that Ukrainian forces were retreating in some areas.

It is clear that our boys are slowly retreating to more fortified positions we need to hold back this horde, Haidai said. Hinting at further withdrawals, he said it was possible that troops would leave one settlement, maybe two. We need to win the war, not the battle.

Separately, a senior Ukrainian military official conceded at a briefing on Thursday that Russia had the upper hand in fighting in Luhansk. Russia has the advantage, but we are doing everything we can, Gen Oleksiy Gromov said.

Haidai said police in Lysychansk were burying the bodies of civilians in mass graves, with about 150 people having been buried in such a grave in one district.

If confirmed, Russias continuing advances in Lyman, which has been contested for a month, would make it easier for Russian forces to isolate the key city of Sievierodonetsk, which has been under relentless shelling for days.

According to accounts posted on social media, Lymans Ukrainian defenders had pulled back to the southern outskirts, although fighting was continuing, in particular around the railway sidings in the city.

Outside Sievierodonetsk, now the focal point of Moscows renewed offensive in Donbas, Haidai said fighting was very difficult.

Predicting the coming week will be decisive, Haidai said the city was being subjected to a colossal amount of shelling by Russian troops attempting to batter it into submission.

After failing to seize Ukraines capital, Kyiv, or its second city, Kharkiv, in its three-month war, Russia is trying to take full control of Donbas, comprising two eastern provinces that Russia claims on behalf of separatists.

Moscow has poured thousands of troops into the region, attacking from three sides in an attempt to encircle Ukrainian forces holding out in Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk.

Their fall would leave the whole of Luhansk province under Russian control, a main aim of the Kremlins war.

Meanwhile the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, issued a bitter rebuke to the west for not doing enough to help Kyiv win the war.

Calling for help without limits, specifically shipments of heavy weaponry, he also criticised recent suggestions that a negotiated peace deal could include territorial concessions.

Zelenskiy has said Russian troops heavily outnumber Ukrainian forces in some parts of the east, and Kyiv has been trying unsuccessfully to arrange a prisoner swap with Moscow.

The heavy attrition on Ukrainian defenders in the east where between 50 and 100 soldiers are dying every day, according to Zelenskiy has also led to claims by Russia of large numbers of prisoners being taken.

Ukrainian prisoners of war held in the Russia-backed self-proclaimed peoples republics of Luhansk and Donetsk number about 8,000, the Luhansk official, Rodion Miroshnik, was quoted by Tass news agency as saying.

There are a lot of prisoners, Miroshnik said. Now the total number is somewhere in the region of 8,000. Thats a lot, and literally hundreds are being added every day. His claims could not be verified.

As Russia seeks to solidify its grip on the territory it has seized, Vladimir Putin signed a decree simplifying the process for residents of newly captured districts to acquire Russian citizenship and passports.

The Russian parliament scrapped the upper age limit for contractual service in the military on Wednesday, highlighting the need to replace lost troops.

In a late-night video address, Zelenskiy said of the changes to the Russian enlistment rules: [They] no longer have enough young men, but they still have the will to fight. It will still take time to crush this will.

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Earlier in the day, the Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, told the World Economic Forum in Davos his country badly needed multiple-launch rocket systems to match Russian firepower in the battle for Donbas.

In the eastern town of Soledar, Ukraines salt manufacturing hub, the ground shook moments after Natalia Timofeyenko climbed out of her bunker on Wednesday.

I go outside just to see people. I know that there is shelling out there but I go, the 47-year-old said after a blast smashed apart a chunk of a salt mine where she worked with most of her friends and neighbours.

Agencies contributed to this report

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Russian forces have upper hand in Donbas fighting, Ukrainian officials say - The Guardian