Authorities reported on Tuesday that Russian forces continued to pound Ukrainian cities, launching missiles at Odesa in the south and cluster bombs at Mykolaiv in the north.
Russia has switched to a campaign of destructive bombardments to solidify and expand its grip on Ukraine’s south and east after failing to take the country’s capital Kyiv at the start of the invasion on February 24.
According to Ukraine, Russian forces have increased long-range attacks on locations distant from the front, killing numerous people in the process. According to Moscow, it is striking military targets.
Russian President Volodymyr Zelensky claims that throughout the five-month conflict, Russia fired almost 3,000 cruise missiles and an untold number of artillery shells.
Zelensky dismissed the nation’s security head and top prosecutor over the weekend after alleging they had not removed Russian agents from their institutions.
U.S. officials said on Monday that Washington would continue supplying intelligence that they have stated Kyiv used to counterattack Moscow’s attacks, notwithstanding his disclosure of Russian penetration of the SBU.
For European nations concerned about the effect of conflict and sanctions on gas supplies, this week could be crucial.
After routine maintenance, Russia’s main natural gas pipeline to Germany, Nord Stream 1, is scheduled to resume in the coming days. However, Europeans are concerned Moscow might decide to keep the pipeline shut.
According to a letter they submitted, Russian company Gazprom, which runs the pipeline, has informed its European clients that it cannot guarantee gas deliveries due to exceptional conditions, tossing their two cents in an economic back-and-forth with the West.
General Valery Zaluzhny of Ukraine’s senior military command hailed HIMARS, advanced long-range rocket weapons supplied by the United States, with helping to stabilise the crisis with massive attacks of enemy command posts, supplies in ammunition, and fuel storage facilities in a Facebook post on Monday.
Russia said on Monday that Ukraine’s Western-provided rockets and artillery had been targeted for destruction by Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu.
Vladimir Putin, the president leading the invasion, claims that his actions forced on Ukraine is a “special military operation” aimed at demilitarising Russia’s neighbour and eliminating potentially dangerous nationalists. Kyiv and the West describe it as an effort to retake a nation that rebelled against Moscow’s control in 1991.
Meanwhile, countermeasures are being prepared by the Western nations. While the allies strive to curtail North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes, Washington will explore with South Korea ways to reduce profits coming to Russia, such as a price ceiling on its oil, according to U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Tuesday.
In a speech prepared for a meeting with her South Korean counterpart Choo Kyung-ho, Yellen stated that she and the latter would look at other measures to hold Russia responsible for its war against Ukraine in addition to a price cap to lower oil earnings.
The unlawful Russian war and the ensuing global energy shock have highlighted the need for us to safeguard against becoming overly dependent on foreign oil, which leaves us open to the whims of authoritarians like Vladimir Putin.
During a three-stop tour of East Asia, she will meet Choo in the South Korean capital.
Yellen told reporters on Saturday that she had held fruitful two-way discussions on the proposed price ceiling with more than six peers present at a gathering of Group of 20 finance officials in Bali, Indonesia.
In an interview while en route to Seoul, Yellen stated that the US might impose additional sanctions against North Korea and added that Pyongyang’s conduct of any nuclear test would be viewed as highly provocative. Following a record number of missile tests this year, including that of its largest intercontinental ballistic missile, there is growing concern that North Korea may be getting ready to test a nuclear weapon, making it the first since 2017.
