In southern Ukraine, the mayor of the port city of Mariupol – which was destroyed by a Russian siege – said sanitation systems had broken down and the bodies had been left to rot in the streets, causing “an outbreak of dysentery and cholera”. “The war that took over 20,000 inhabitants … unfortunately, with these outbreaks, will claim thousands of other Mariupolites,” Mayor Vadim Boichenko told national television. He called on the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross to work for the creation of a humanitarian corridor that would allow the remaining residents to leave the city, which is now under Russian control. In a snapshot of the wider impact of the war, the UN food service said reduced exports of wheat and other food products from Ukraine and Russia could cause chronic hunger for up to 19 million more people worldwide next year.
Siege of Sheverodonetsk
Further fierce fighting broke out in Severodonetsk, the small town that has become the epicenter of Russia’s advance into eastern Ukraine and one of the bloodiest hotbeds of a war in its fourth month. Russia hopes to seize the entire territory of the eastern province of Luhansk, which Ukraine has demanded it hand over to separatists along with neighboring Donetsk – an area known as Donbass where it has supported a separatist insurgency since 2014. To this end, the Kremlin has concentrated its forces in a battle for Severodonetsk. Ukrainian troops have largely withdrawn from residential areas of the city, but have not retreated to the east bank of the Siverskiy Donets River. Russian forces are also pushing north and south to try to encircle the Ukrainians, but so far they have made limited progress. Both sides say they have inflicted huge losses in the battle for the city. IN PHOTOS Day 107 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine:
Calls for Western support, weapons
In a videotaped speech, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for the country to integrate as part of the West, with binding guarantees for its protection. Asking the EU to accept Ukraine as a candidate, he told a conference in Copenhagen: “The European Union can take a historic step in proving that words for the people of Ukraine belonging to the European family are not just words.” The war in the east, where Russia is focusing its attention, is now primarily an artillery battle in which Kyiv has been severely defeated, Ukrainian officials say. This means that the wave of events could only be reversed if the West fulfilled its promises to send more and better weapons, including the missile systems promised by Washington and others. “This is an artillery war now,” Vadim Skibitsky, the deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence service, told Britain’s Guardian newspaper. “Everything depends on what it gives us (the West). Ukraine has an artillery of up to 10 to 15 Russian artillery pieces.” CLOCKS What happened in week 16 of Russia’s attack on Ukraine:
What happened in week 16 of the Russian attack on Ukraine
With millions of tonnes of grain stuck in Ukrainian ports due to Russian blockades, the United Nations has accused the Kremlin of creating a global food crisis. Russia has also hit Kyiv with airstrikes for the first time in months as fighting continues to escalate in the Luhansk, Donetsk and Kharkiv regions. Following is a summary of the war in Ukraine from 4 to 10 June. Germany has been one of the largest suppliers of weapons since Russia invaded, but has been criticized for being slow to supply the heavy weapons that Kyiv says it needs. German officials said they planned to revise arms export rules to facilitate the arming of democracies such as Ukraine, Der Spiegel reported on Friday. Russian President Vladimir Putin launched what he called a “special military operation” in Ukraine in February, saying his goal was to disarm and “disarm” Russia’s neighbor. Kyiv and its allies call it an unprovoked offensive to seize territory. Ukrainian officials said a speech delivered Thursday by Putin – who drew a parallel between what he described as a new quest to reclaim Russian territory and the historic achievements of Tsar Peter the Great – proved that Moscow’s goal was the conquest. “Putin’s confession of land confiscation and comparison of himself with Peter the Great prove: there was no ‘conflict’, only the bloody occupation of the country with fabricated pretexts of genocide,” Zelensky’s aide Mykhailo wrote on Twitter. Podolyak.
