Ukraine War Latest: Zelenskiy says stalemate with Russia is ‘not an option’

Here is a comprehensive run-down of where things currently stand.

• Ukrainian forces are finding it hard to stave off Russian attacks in the centre of Sievierodonestk but Moscow’s forces do not control the frontline eastern city, regional officials say. Russian forces have seized residential quarters of the key eastern city and are fighting to take control of an industrial zone on its outskirts and the nearby towns, Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu said. The Luhansk governor, Serhiy Haidai, conceded that Russian forces control the industrial outskirts of the city. Satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies showed significant damage in Sievierodonetsk and nearby Rubizhne.

• Some 800 civilians have taken refuge in a chemical factory in Sievierodonetsk, according to a lawyer for Dmytro Firtash, whose company owns the facility. “These 800 civilians include around 200 out of the plant’s 3,000 employees and approximately 600 inhabitants of the city of Sievierodonetsk,” Lanny J. Davis, a US lawyer, noted in a statement published on the company website.

• More than 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers who surrendered in the southern port city of Mariupol have been transferred to Russia, according to Russian state-owned news agency, Tass. More Ukrainian prisoners of war will be taken to Russia “later on”, the outlet cited a Russian law enforcement source as saying. Some residents who managed to escape are saying they were given no choice but to travel to Russia in what Kyiv regards as “deportations”, Agence France-Presse added.

• A stalemate with Russia is “not an option”, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said, reiterating a plea for foreign help in the war. “Victory must be achieved on the battlefield,” he said in an interview with the Financial Times on Tuesday, adding that he “simply cannot see the preconditions for ending the war”. Victory meant restoring “all” of Ukraine’s territory, including Crimea – annexed by Russia in 2014 – and separatist-held areas, he suggested.

• Russian proxy fighters in east Ukraine have said they are opening a trial against two Britons, Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner, who were captured fighting alongside Ukrainian soldiers in Mariupol. The two men, who are serving in the Ukrainian military, and Ibrahim Saadun, a captive from Morocco, were shown sitting in a courtroom cage reserved for defendants in a video released on pro-Russian social media channels on Tuesday.
• Ukraine’s first deputy minister of agrarian policy and food, Taras Vysotskyi, said it would take six months to clear the coast of Russian and Ukrainian mines. His remarks dealt a blow to a proposal under discussion where ships leaving Ukrainian ports would be given safe escort by Turkish naval vessels.

• The European Union needs to build warehouses and extend railway tracks across the Ukrainian border to help Kyiv in its attempts to move more grain out of the country to those who need it, says the country’s trade representative. Ukraine will not be able to export more than 2m tonnes of grain a month, around a third of pre-war levels, as long as its main trade routes through its Black Sea ports remain blockaded by Russia, said Taras Kachka.

• The World Bank has approved $1.49bn of additional financing for Ukraine to help pay wages for government and social workers, expanding the bank’s total pledged support for Kyiv to over $4 billion. The latest round of funding is supported by financing guarantees from Britain, the Netherlands, Lithuania and Latvia.

• Russia is ramping up oil exports from its major eastern port of Kozmino as it aims to offset the impact of EU sanctions with the surging demand from Asian buyers. Sources told Reuters that Russia has already increased the amount of crude pumped to Kozmino on its main Asian oil route, the East Siberia Pacific Ocean (ESPO) pipeline, by 70,000 barrels per day (bpd).

• The United States Treasury Department has banned US money managers from buying any Russian debt or stocks in secondary markets, on top of its existing ban on new-issue purchases, in its latest sanctions on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.

• Former German chancellor Angela Merkel said she tried to prevent the situation in Ukraine and has no regrets while in office. “It’s a great sadness that it didn’t work out, but I don’t blame myself for not trying,” Merkel said during a televised interview on Tuesday, speaking on the 2014 Minsk agreement with Russia.

• Moscow’s Chief Rabbi has reportedly fled Russia, after coming under pressure to support Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Journalist Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt tweeted late on Tuesday: “Can finally share that my in-laws, Moscow Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt and Rebbetzin Dara Goldschmidt, have been put under pressure by authorities to publicly support the ‘special operation’ in Ukraine — and refused.”