Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that his country will win in the four-month war with Russia.
As Russian forces continue their effort to seize Severodonetsk in eastern Ukraine, the region is witnessing the bloodiest clashes of the war to date. Neither side declared victory in the clashes that turned the city into rubble.
Ukraine demanded faster delivery of heavy weapons from the West to change the picture in the war with Russian forces. Kyiv states that Russian forces have at least 10 times more artillery than Ukrainian forces. However, despite this situation, the Ukrainian army put up stronger resistance than expected in the early stages of the war.
Addressing a conference in Singapore via video link, Zelenski said, “We will definitely win in this war launched by Russia. “The future rules of this world are being decided on the battlefields in Ukraine,” he said.
The effects of the war between Ukraine and Russia, the world’s two largest grain exporters, went far beyond Ukraine’s borders.
Global food prices have skyrocketed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24. The UN warned yesterday that more than 19 million people worldwide may face chronic hunger next year due to declining exports of wheat and other food products.
The sanctions imposed on Russia, the world’s leading oil and natural gas exporter, also led to an increase in global energy prices.
Zelenski said, “If we cannot export our food products, which are deeply lacking in global markets, due to the Russian blockade, the world will face a severe and severe food crisis and hunger, and there will be starvation in many countries in Asia and Africa.”
Turkey has made attempts to reach an agreement so that Ukraine can resume shipments from Black Sea ports. However, Moscow emphasizes that Kiev should clear the ports of mines, while Ukraine demands security guarantees so that these places do not become vulnerable to attack.
Intense street fighting
“As Ukrainian forces use the last remaining stockpiles of Soviet-era weapons systems and ammunition, they will need continued Western support in transitioning to new supply chains that include ammunition and key heavy weapons systems,” the Institute for War Studies said in a report released yesterday. In the report, it was stated that effective heavy weapons would be of vital importance in “conflicts that follow a largely static course” in the east.
The British Ministry of Defense said in a statement today that the Russian forces around Severodentsk could not advance towards the south of the settlement and intense clashes took place in the streets of the city.
Severodonetsk is located in the Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine, which Russia wants to fully control. Moscow, together with neighboring Donetsk, demands that this region be handed over to the separatists. These two regions make up the Donbas region, where Moscow has supported separatists since 2014.
Luhansk Governor Serhiy Hayday announced that Russian forces control most of the city, but the Azot chemical plant in the city, where hundreds of civilians took shelter, is still under Ukrainian control. Hayday denied separatists’ claim that between 300 and 400 Ukrainian fighters were trapped at the facility.
“Our forces are holding an industrial area in Severodonetsk and destroying the Russian army in the city,” Hayday said in a statement on Telegram.
The clashes in Severodonetsk are reminiscent of the weeks of shelling over the port city of Mariupol in southern Ukraine.
The mayor of Mariupol said that the sanitation systems had collapsed and corpses were rotting on the city streets.
In the statement made by the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine via Telegram, it was stated that 287 children have died in the war so far.