“20% of our territory is under the control of the occupying forces,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told members of the Luxembourg parliament on Thursday, explaining that it was 125,000 square kilometers.
Fighting continues in Ukraine, especially in the east, as the 100th day of the war dawns, with Kyiv acknowledging that Russian troops have occupied one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory since invading it on February 24.
“20% of our territory is under the control of the occupying forces,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told members of the Luxembourg parliament on Thursday, explaining that it was 125,000 square kilometers.
This area “is larger than the whole of the Benelux,” Zelensky added, using the geographical term referring to Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. He also said that the contact lines of the warring sides are longer than 1,000 kilometers.
Russian forces captured some 3,260 communities, many of which were later liberated, he said. The Ukrainian military, he said, is determined to prevent the fall of Sheverdonyevsk, the interim capital of the Luhansk region, where fighting has been raging for days and Russian and pro-Russian separatists appear to have taken advantage.
“The situation is difficult, but better than yesterday. “And it remains under control,” Ukrainian Deputy Chief of Staff Oleksiy Khromov told reporters in Kyiv.
Both Ukrainian and Russian sources say about 800 civilians have taken refuge in the basement of a chemical plant in Severodonetsk. “These are locals who were asked to leave but were refused, and among them are ‘children, not too many anyway,'” Ukrainian Luhansk governor Sergiy Haidai told CNN.
The plant is being defended by Ukrainian troops amid the advance of Russian and pro-Russian forces into other parts of the city.
A spokesman for the pro-Russian separatists accused Ukrainian forces of blocking civilians from leaving the factory, according to the Russian news agency TASS.
The occupation of Severodonetsk would be an important milestone for Russia, which aims to occupy the entire Donbas basin, as eastern Ukraine is called, a region with a significant industrial base.
Elsewhere in Ukraine, four Russian Cruise missiles hit railway infrastructure near Lviv (west), injuring five people. Explosions were heard in the port of Odessa (south) early yesterday morning, but the authorities did not announce anything more. In Krasnopilia (north), three people were injured when rockets hit an apartment building.
While NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warns that the armed conflict in Ukraine is turning into a long-term “war of attrition”, Ukrainian President Zelensky stressed yesterday in his speech to the Luxembourg parliament that .
He added, apparently referring – without naming – to Russian President Vladimir Putin, that “this man must be prevented from destroying European values”, adding that “if we can not stop him together, dark hours will come, as those we lived through in World War II. “
The United States, which this week announced it was sending heavy weapons to Ukraine, including advanced HIMARS multi-role rocket launchers, announced other sanctions yesterday, particularly against Russian oligarchs and government officials, including the billionaire Maria Zakharova. The US government has also targeted Monaco-based Imperial Yachts, which specializes in yacht trading and reportedly has close ties to Russian President Putin.
