On war’s 100th day, Ukrainians hold out as Russia advances deep into eastern city

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Russian forces tried to ford a river from the ruined eastern factory city of Sievierodonetsk but Ukrainian troops were still holding out there as Russia’s assault on its neighbour reached its 100th day on Friday.

Ukraine’s Defence Minister said his soldiers were already training in Europe to operate new, advanced missile systems pledged this week by the United States and Britain, which Kyiv hopes will help swing the battle in its favour.

A war that Western countries believe Russia planned to win within hours has ground on for more than three months, with Moscow having been driven back from the capital launching a huge new assault in the east at a cost of thousands of lives and disruption to the global economy.

Rejecting Western criticism that the war is to blame for rising global food prices hurting poor countries, Russian President Vladimir Putin denied Moscow was preventing Ukrainian ports from exporting cereals.

Reuters reached Sievierodonetsk on Thursday and was able to verify that Ukrainians still held part of the city. Troops drove toward a plume of black smoke at high speed over roads littered with wrecked armoured vehicles. One soldier sat in the back seat, his face streaked with blood from injuries.

At another location in the city, Ukrainian troops, including foreign volunteers, unloaded weapons from a truck.

“We’re gonna push the Russians back. It will take a day, a month, or a year it does not fucking matter. We are on the right side of history,” said Zurab Kakalidze, a Georgian who described himself as “just a 22-year-old kid.”

Two Reuters journalists were injured and a driver killed after their vehicle came under fire as they tried to reach Sievierodonetsk from an area controlled by Russian-backed separatists.

The past weeks have seen Russia pour forces into the battle for the city known for its large chemicals factory, and which Russia must capture to achieve its stated aim of holding all of Luhansk province. Both sides have been taking punishing losses there in a street-by-street battle that could set the trajectory for a long war of attrition.

“I regret to say that the Russian army succeeded in making its way deep into the city … they control most of the city,” regional governor Serhiy Gaidai said in televised comments overnight.

He said about a fifth of the city was now a contested “grey zone.” Ukrainian fighters were holding out in one area and were still able to clear Russians out of some streets, he said.

“So I would tell skeptics not to write off Sievierodonetsk. It’s too early to do that.”

Russian soldiers advanced toward Lysychansk, across the river from Sievierodonetsk, but were held back and retreated, Ukraine’s military general staff said.

In neighbouring Donetsk province, also a target of Moscow’s eastern offensive, Russian troops were just 15 kilometres outside the city of Sloviansk, regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko told Reuters.

Donetsk will not fall quickly, but needs more weapons to keep the attackers at bay, Mr. Kyrylenko said.

Washington said this week it expected Ukrainians would need three weeks of training to use the rockets, whose range of up to 80 km could help negate Russia’s artillery firepower advantage.

U.S. President Joe Biden told reporters a negotiated settlement in Ukraine would be needed at some point, but that in the meantime the United States would help the Ukrainians defend themselves.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an overnight address that Kyiv was expecting more “good news” on foreign arms, after the latest US$700-million U.S. weapons package for Ukraine. “Victory will be ours,” he said later on Friday in a video address from outside his Kyiv office to mark 100 days of the war.

Moscow says the Western weapons will pour “fuel on the fire,” but will not change the course of what it calls a “special military operation” to disarm Ukraine and rid it of dangerous nationalists.

Despite being driven from the north of Ukraine in March after a failed assault on the capital, Russia still controls around a fifth of the country, about half seized in 2014 and half captured since launching its invasion on Feb. 24.

For both sides, the massive Russian assault in the east in recent weeks has been one of the deadliest phases of the war, with Ukraine saying it is losing 60 to 100 soldiers every day.

Moscow has made slow but steady progress, squeezing Ukrainian forces inside a pocket in Luhansk and Donetsk provinces, but so far failing to encircle them.

Kyiv, meanwhile, hopes the Russian advance will drain Moscow’s forces enough for Ukraine to mount counteroffensives and recapture territory in months to come.

The war has had a devastating impact on the global economy, especially for poor food-importing countries. Ukraine is one of the world’s leading sources of grain and cooking oil, but those supplies were cut off by the closing of its Black Sea ports.

“Failure to open those ports will result in famine,” UN crisis co-ordinator Amin Awad said in Geneva, saying a grain shortage could affect 1.4-billion people and trigger mass migration.

Kyiv and its allies blame Moscow for blockading the ports, which Ukraine has mined to prevent a Russian amphibious assault. Mr. Putin said Western sanctions, including on Russian fertilizer, and energy policy were to blame. He said sanctions should be lifted on Belarus, to allow Ukraine to export through its neighbour, an ally of Moscow.

In a previous promise for “unhindered transit of goods” across the Black Sea, the Kremlin linked safe navigation to the “mine threat.”

Germany’s foreign ministry said “risk of famine in parts of the world” was a consequence of Russia’s “war of aggression and not of Western sanctions.”

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