Ukraine is demanding more weapons as it detains Russians in the east

KYIV, Ukraine, June 10 (Reuters) – Ukrainian officials on Friday called on the West to provide additional assistance, including the rapid deployment of well – armed Russian forces at a critical juncture in the war in the east.

Fierce fighting is still reported in the small eastern city of Siverodonetsk, which has become the center of Russia’s progress and one of the bloody flash points of war that has exacerbated financial and physical hardships around the world.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization says 19 million people worldwide could suffer from chronic hunger next year due to declining exports of wheat and other food items from Ukraine and Russia.

Within Ukraine, authorities said they were concerned about the spread of deadly cholera and diarrhea in the southern city of Mariupol, where tens of thousands of civilians are living in the rubble captured by Russian troops last month after a relentless siege.

In a video linked speech at a conference in Copenhagen, President Volodymyr Zhelensky called for the acceptance of Ukraine as part of the West and firm guarantees for its security.

“The EU can take a historic step that proves that words about the Ukrainian people of European family are not just words,” he said, urging the EU to accept Ukraine as a member candidate.

During his visit to the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said Germany would help build trauma centers for the injured, donate prostheses and send doctors.

But now Kiev has been hit hard by Moscow, primarily in an artillery battle in the east, and Ukrainian officials say the tide of events can only be reversed if the West fulfills its promises to send more and better weapons, including to Washington and other rocket systems. Have promised.

“This is an artillery war now,” Vadim Skipitsky, deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, told Britain’s Guardian newspaper.

“Everything now (in the West) depends on what it gives us. There are about 10 to 15 Russian artillery pieces in a single cannon in Ukraine.”

Corpses contaminate water

In the hope of capturing the entire territory of the eastern province of Luhansk, Russia has concentrated its forces in the war for the Siverodonetsk, which is demanding the surrender of Ukraine to the separatist province of Donetsk – the area known as Donbass, which was backed by separatist proxies. Since 2014.

Ukrainian troops had largely evacuated from the city’s residential areas, but they did not set foot on the east bank of the Shivarsky Donets River. Russian forces are also trying to encircle the Ukrainians from the north and south, but so far have made limited progress.

Both sides claim that the battle for the city caused massive casualties.

The Ukrainian mayor of the Russian-controlled city of Mariupol is now operating outside the southern port after a three-month siege that killed thousands, and said thousands more could die from the disease.

Vadim Poichenko said Russian occupation forces had failed to dispose of bodies in the city properly, polluting the water supply as they rotted in hot weather and rain.

“Diarrhea and cholera have erupted … (it) will demand thousands more marijuana,” he said.

President Vladimir Putin launched his “special military operation” in Ukraine in February, saying his aim was to disarm and “reduce” Russia’s neighbors. Kiev and its allies are calling for an unprovoked war of occupation.

Putin’s speech on Thursday – a parallel between his portrayal of a new quest to recapture Russian territory and the historic achievements of Tsar Peter the Great – proved that Moscow’s aim proved to be a success.

Zelenskiy’s aide Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted: “Putin’s confession, which compares himself to land grabbing and Peter the Great, proves: there is no ‘conflict’, only bloody seizure of the country under the pretext of genocide.”

Additional report by Reuters bureau; Written by Peter Groff and John Stone Street; Editing by Filippa Fletcher and Edmund Player

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