Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday that Moscow would not stop its “military operation” – the Kremlin’s euphemism for war – before the next round of talks with Russia. Ukraine.
So far, meetings between delegations of negotiators from Moscow and Kiev have proved unproductive. There have been rounds in Belarus, a dictatorship allied to Vladimir Putin, and in Turkey, where President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is trying to set himself up as a mediator in the conflict, but none of the meetings has made significant progress towards ending the conflict.
Ukrainian forces have repelled several Russian attacks in the east of the country, according to the UK intelligence report, while President Volodymyr Zelensky repeated that thousands of Moscow troops are gathering for a new offensive in the region.
Russian forces also continue to put pressure on Mariupol, a strategic point for the Kremlin’s interests, in an attempt to establish total control over the city, which has been the target of constant attacks since the beginning of the war and the scene of the most serious humanitarian crisis of the conflict.
“There are tens of thousands of dead, yet the Russians are not stopping their offensive,” Zelensky said in a speech to South Korea’s parliament. The accuracy of the president’s estimate could not be confirmed.
The 36th Marines Brigade, an arm of Ukraine’s army, in a Facebook post said on Monday that it was preparing for the “final battle” in Mariupol.
“Today will likely be the final battle as our ammunition is running low. This means death for some of us and captivity for others,” the brigade wrote. “We are disappearing little by little.”
According to the publication, nearly half of the Ukrainian soldiers in the port city are wounded. The unit says it has been fighting for more than a month “without ammunition, without food, without water, doing the possible and the impossible”.
“The enemy has pushed us back little by little, has surrounded us and is now trying to destroy us,” says the brigade, adding criticism for lack of support “from the army command and the president.”
Also on Monday, the Chancellor of Austria, Karl Nehammer, is due to meet with the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin. Austria does not play a leading role in the conflict with Ukraine, but the meeting will be the first between the Russian and a European leader since the conflict began on February 24.
“We are militarily neutral, but we have a clear stance on the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. It has to stop! We need humanitarian corridors, ceasefires and a full investigation of war crimes,” Nehammer wrote in a Twitter post. .
In his daily speech to the Ukrainians, Zelensky again warned about the possible intensification of Russian attacks in the east of the country – corroborated by the United Kingdom, which recorded bombings in the provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk.
“Russian troops will move to even bigger operations in the east of our state. They can use even more missiles against us, even more bombs. But we are preparing for their actions. We will respond,” the Ukrainian said, reiterating to the South Korean lawmakers the request for more military aid to confront Russia.
