Ukrainian officials called for more help from the West on Friday, including faster deliveries of artillery and missile battlefield systems to contain Russian forces at a critical time in the east. Fierce fighting continued to be reported in Sievierodonetsk, the small eastern city that has become the epicenter of Russia’s advance and the site of one of the bloodiest battles in a war that has increased economic and physical hardship around the world. Chronic starvation could affect up to 19 million more people worldwide next year due to declining exports of wheat and other food products from Ukraine and Russia, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has said. In Ukraine, officials said they were concerned about the spread of deadly cholera and dysentery in the southern city of Mariupol, where tens of thousands of people are living in ruins arrested last month following the Russian siege. In a video link to a conference on democracy in Copenhagen, President Volodymyr Zelensky called for his country to be accepted as part of the West, with binding guarantees for its protection. “The European Union can take a historic step to prove that the words of the people of Ukraine belonging to the European family are not just words and therefore not empty,” he said, calling on the EU to accept Ukraine’s request. accepted. as a candidate member. Ukrainian officials say the war in the east has been largely an artillery battle, with heavy shelling from Moscow. The tide could only be reversed if the West fulfilled its promises to send more and better artillery, including missile systems promised by Washington and others. “This is an artillery war now,” Vadim Skibitsky, deputy chief of Ukraine’s military intelligence service, told Britain’s Guardian newspaper. “Everything depends on what (the West) gives us,” Skimicki said. “Ukraine has an artillery of up to 10 to 15 Russian artillery pieces. “Our western partners have given us about 10 percent of what they have.” Russia has rallied in a battle for the city of Sievierodonetsk, hoping to occupy the entire territory of the eastern province of Luhansk, which Ukraine is demanding to hand over to the separatists along with the neighboring province of Donetsk. Ukrainian troops have largely withdrawn from residential areas of the city, but have not retreated to the east bank of the Siverskiy Donets River, and have so far thwarted Russia’s attempts to encircle them. Both sides say they have inflicted huge losses in the battle for the city. Russian forces are also pushing north and south into the surrounding areas to try to encircle the Ukrainians, but so far they have made only limited progress. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said the Russians were still trying to test Ukrainian defense along the river. The Ukrainian mayor of Mariupol, now active outside the Russian-controlled southern port after nearly three months of siege, said thousands more could die of cholera. The Russian occupation forces failed to properly dispose of the corpses that were scattered throughout the city, rotting in hot weather and rain, contaminating the water supply, said Vadym Boichenko. “There is an outbreak of dysentery and cholera. This is unfortunately the assessment of our doctors. “That the war that took over 20,000 inhabitants,… unfortunately, with these outbreaks of infection, will claim thousands of other Mariupolites.” President Vladimir Putin launched his “special military operation” in Ukraine in February, claiming his goal was to disarm and “disarm” Russia’s neighbor. Kyiv and its allies call it an unprovoked offensive to seize territory. Russian forces were defeated in March on the outskirts of the capital Kiev and later repulsed by the second largest city Kharkiv, but still control an area to the east and south. Focusing to the east is an area known as Donbass, which includes the provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk, where they have supported an insurgency by separatist proxies since 2014. Ukraine said a speech by Putin on Thursday – drawing a parallel between what he described as a new quest for the recapture of Russian territory and the historic achievements of Tsar Peter the Great – showed 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. Volunteer drivers risk everything to deliver humanitarian aid to Ukrainian civilians and drive people out The Associated Press Our Morning and Afternoon Newsletters are compiled by Globe editors, giving you a brief overview of the day’s most important headlines. Register today.
