Ukraine says Russia missed targets in Saturday’s eastern attack

Russian forces attacked the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine on Saturday but failed to capture the three areas they were targeting, Ukrainian military said.

Meanwhile, also on Saturday, Moscow said Western sanctions against Russia and arms shipments to Ukraine were hampering peace talks.

The Russians were trying to capture the Lyman areas in Donetsk and Sievierodonetsk and Popasna in Luhansk, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in its daily update bulletin.

“They are not succeeding – the struggle continues,” he said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in comments published earlier on Saturday, said lifting Western sanctions on Russia was part of peace talks, which he said were difficult but continued daily by videoconference.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has insisted since the Russian invasion began on February 24 that sanctions need to be tightened and cannot be part of the negotiations.

He said on Friday that there was a high risk that negotiations would end because of what he called Russia’s “manual murder of people”.

Ukraine accuses Russian troops of atrocities in areas near the capital Kiev, which they previously occupied. Moscow denies the allegations.

Lavrov said that if the United States and other NATO countries are really interested in solving the Ukrainian crisis, they should stop sending weapons to Kiev.

In Washington, US President Joe Biden’s proposed $33 billion aid package for Ukraine, including $20 billion in weapons, received bipartisan support.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Friday that she hopes Congress will pass the package as soon as possible.

“They couldn’t get through our defense”

Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a “special operation” to disarm Ukraine and protect it from the fascists. Ukraine and the West say the fascist claim is unfounded and that the war is an unprovoked act of aggression.

The war turned cities to rubble, killed thousands and forced 5 million Ukrainians to flee abroad. After failing to capture the capital, Russia is now focusing on eastern and southern Ukraine.

Moscow hopes to take full control of the eastern Donbass region, made up of Luhansk and Donetsk, parts of which were already controlled by Russian-backed separatists before the invasion.

Moscow said Saturday that its artillery units had hit 389 Ukrainian targets overnight.

The governor of Russia’s Bryansk region said air defenses prevented a Ukrainian aircraft from entering the region and, as a result, shelling hit parts of an oil terminal, Russian news agencies reported.

On the Ukrainian side, the governor of Luhansk, Serhiy Gaidai, said the Russians were bombing the entire region “but they couldn’t get through our defense”. He said civilians will continue to be evacuated despite the difficult situation.

Gaidai said two schools and 20 houses were destroyed by Russian attacks on Friday in the Luhansk towns of Rubizhne and Popasna.

Mykola Khanatov, head of military administration in Popasna, said that two buses sent to evacuate civilians from the city were shot at by Russian troops on Friday and there was no news from the drivers. He did not say how many people were on the buses.

There were also reports of attacks in places outside of Donbass, including the southern areas of Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia and the northeastern city of Kharkiv, where the regional governor said a residential area was bombed overnight.

The UK Defense Ministry said on Saturday that Russia had been forced to merge and redeploy depleted and disparate units from failed advances in northeastern Ukraine.

Reuters could not independently verify reports of what was happening at the site.

Tons of Stolen Grain

Ukraine’s Deputy Agriculture Minister Taras Vysotskiy accused Russian forces of stealing hundreds of thousands of tons of grain in the areas they occupy and said he feared an additional 1.5 million tons were at risk of being stolen.

Ukraine said on Thursday that Russian theft of grain from its territory is increasing the threat to global food security posed by disruptions to spring sowing and the blockade of Ukrainian ports.

The Kremlin said it had no information on the matter.

According to data from the International Grains Council, Ukraine was the fourth largest grain exporter in the world in the 2020/21 season, selling 44.7 million tonnes abroad.

The volume of exports has dropped dramatically since the invasion.

Zelensky said in his speech on Friday night that fuel shortages will soon end in Ukraine, although Russian forces have damaged several oil deposits.

Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said operators in Ukraine had secured contracts with European suppliers.