Russia-Ukraine Crisis: President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Moscow’s massive air and artillery attacks were aimed at destroying the entire Donbas region and urged Ukraine’s allies to accelerate the shipment of heavy weapons to match Russia on the battlefield.
The fight for the twin cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk in Ukraine’s Luhansk region is “entering a sort of fearsome climax”, said Oleksiy Arestovych, adviser to Zelenskyy. Russia is seeking to capture both Luhansk and Donetsk, which make up the Donbas region which is the nation’s industrial heartland.
Meanwhile, European leaders will formally set Ukraine on the long road to EU membership at a summit in Brussels on Thursday. Though mainly symbolic, the move will help lift national morale at a very difficult time in a four-month conflict. Wednesday was the “Day of Remembrance and Sorrow” in Russia and Ukraine, commemorating the day Hitler’s Germany attacked the Soviet Union.
Russian President Vladimir Putin laid flowers at a memorial flame for the dead. World War Two, which killed 27 million Soviet citizens, plays a prominent role in Russian commentary on the Ukraine invasion, which Putin calls a “special operation” to root out “Nazis.”