Putin defiant as Macron and Scholz call for fresh
Ukraine peace talks
The Russian president warned the French and German
leaders it was ‘dangerous’ for the west to supply further weapons to Ukraine
Shaun
Walker in Kyiv
Sat 28 May
2022 07.43 EDT
Emmanuel
Macron and Olaf Scholz held a three-way telephone conversation with the Russian
president, Vladimir Putin, on Saturday, with the French and German leaders
urging Putin to hold “direct serious negotiations” with his Ukrainian
counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
The call
came as Russia’s assault on Ukraine’s Donbas region continues to grind on.
During the 80-minute conversation, the two leaders “insisted on an immediate
ceasefire and a withdrawal of Russian troops”, according to a readout from
Scholz’s office.
Putin is
unlikely to heed such calls. Instead, he warned Macron and Scholz that western
weapons deliveries to Ukraine were “dangerous” and risked “further
destabilisation of the situation”, according to a Kremlin readout.
Hopes for
diplomacy have faded in recent weeks as Russia’s invasion reaches the
three-month mark. Although Ukraine is taking heavy losses on the battlefield,
there is a widespread belief in the country that agreeing to a negotiated
settlement would simply give Russia time to regroup ahead of a further attack.
Russia’s
army confirmed on Saturday that it now controls the strategic town of Lyman in
eastern Ukraine, as Moscow’s assault on the Donbas region continues to grind
on.
Lyman, a
town of 20,000 people, lies on the road to Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, two of the
major Donbas population centres not yet under Russian control.
“The town
of Krasny Liman has been entirely liberated from Ukrainian nationalists,” said
Russia’s defence ministry in a statement, using the town’s old name.
Ukraine is
on the back foot in Donbas, the industrial heartland of the country where
Russia-backed forces already seized territory eight years ago and which has now
become the centre of Moscow’s Ukraine invasion after the failed attempts to
take the major cities of Kyiv and Kharkiv.
In his
daily video address on Friday evening, Zelenskiy, said the Russians had
“concentrated maximum artillery, maximum reserves in Donbas”, making life very
difficult for the Ukrainian army.
“There are
missile strikes and aircraft attacks – everything,” Zelenskiy said.
Attention
this week has been focused on the city of Sievierodonetsk, which if captured
would give Russia control of the whole Luhansk region. The city has been under
intense artillery and missile bombardment all week, and the Russians have taken
control of the Myr hotel on the edge of town.
On Saturday
morning, the Luhansk regional governor, Serhiy Haidai, said the Russians had so
far not been able to advance any further than the hotel.
“We have
not yet been able to get them out of there, despite their losses. But they are
not able to move further either. Their tactics are always the same: a few hours
of shelling, and then they try to advance,” he wrote.
Ukraine’s
defence minister said foreign military deliveries were helping Ukrainian forces
on the frontline, noting three systems that were now in active use against the
Russians: M777 and FH70 howitzers as well as the Caesar self-propelled
artillery. He also said American M109 howitzer systems had arrived in Ukraine.
“To imagine
this back in March would have been impossible. But today it is a reality,”
Oleksii Reznikov wrote on Facebook.
At the same
time, Ukrainian officials continue to demand more weapons deliveries from the
west, saying they risk being outgunned in Donbas and need the deliveries
urgently.
There were
reports in Washington that the Pentagon may be preparing to send Ukraine
advanced long-range rocket systems to help their battle in the Donbas,
something that the Ukrainian army and political leaders have been requesting
for months.
Meanwhile,
Russian forces also carried out a demonstrative test of a new hypersonic
missile on Saturday. The Zircon missile, which was first tested in late 2020,
was fired from a frigate in the Barents Sea and hit a target in the White Sea
in the Arctic that was 625 miles away, said Russia’s defence ministry.
The Zircon
can reach speeds of up to 10-times the speed of sound and flies at a low
altitude, making it more difficult to intercept.
Also on
Saturday, Ukraine’s former president Petro Poroshenko said he was barred from
leaving the country, accusing Zelenskiy of breaking a “political ceasefire” in
place since the start of the war. Poroshenko was due to travel to a Nato
parliamentary assembly meeting in Vilnius.
Zelenskiy
defeated Poroshenko in a 2019 election and before the start of the war
prosecutors were investigating Poroshenko over his participation in an
allegedly corrupt coal export scheme. Many observers suggested the charges were
politically motivated.
This
satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows destroyed buildings, in
Popasna, a town in Sievierodonetsk region, Ukraine.
After the
outbreak of the war, Ukrainian authorities suspended the activities of a number
of political parties with pro-Russian platforms, but others were allowed to
continue, including Poroshenko’s European Solidarity party. Despite the
longstanding acrimony between Zelenskiy and Poroshenko, both appeared to put
their quarrels aside to focus on the threat from Russia.
“There is a
risk that by this decision, the authorities have broken the ‘political
ceasefire’ in place during the war … which one of the pillars of national unity
in the face of Russian aggression,” said Poroshenko’s office in a statement.
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