Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has urged Western leaders to ramp up arms deliveries to his country as Russian forces fought to take Lysychansk, the last major city still held by Ukrainian troops in the eastern province of Luhansk.
Luhansk governor Serhiy Gaidai said Lysychansk suffered “catastrophic” damage from shelling when Russian forces attacked the city after the fall of neighboring Sievierodonetsk over the weekend.
Zelensky was set to deliver a video address Monday to leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) advanced industrial nations meeting in Germany.
Overnight, he stressed the urgency of more weapons, including a modern air defense system.
“Partners need to act faster when they are real partners, not observers. Delays in arms transfers to our state, any restrictions – this is really an invitation for Russia to strike again and again,” he said.
In Germany, US President Joe Biden told allies that “we must stick together” against Russia in light of its attack on Ukraine, now in its fifth month.
The US will likely announce the purchase of advanced medium- to long-range surface-to-air missile defenses for Ukraine this week, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The G7 summit will focus on the war in Ukraine and its consequences for the food and energy supply and the global economy.
At the beginning of the meeting, four countries decided to ban the import of Russian gold from tightening sanctions against Moscow and cutting funding for the invasion of Ukraine.
On Monday, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said that Russian troops used artillery to cut off Lysychansk from the south.
Russian warplanes had also struck near Lysychansk, the general staff said in its daily update.
The Tass news agency on Sunday quoted an official from Moscow-backed separatists as saying that Russian forces had penetrated Lysychansk from five directions and were isolating Ukrainian defenders.
“Lysychansk, it was an abomination last week,” said Elena, an elderly woman from the city among the dozens of evacuees who arrived by bus from frontline areas of the Ukrainian-occupied town of Pokrovsk.
“I already told my husband that if I die, please bury me behind the house,” she said.
In a major setback for Ukraine, Russian forces took full control of Sievierodonetsk, Lysychansk’s sister city on the eastern bank of the Siversky Donets River, over the weekend as Ukrainian forces withdrew after weeks of intense bombing and street fighting.
Luhansk and the neighboring Donetsk province make up the Eastern Donbas region of Ukraine – the country’s industrial heart.
The Donbas became a prime target for the Kremlin after Russian forces failed to take the capital, Kyiv, in the early stages of the war.
Russian forces also controlled some of the territories to the south, including the port city of Mariupol, which fell after weeks of siege warfare, leaving it in ruins.
Russian missiles also hit Kyiv for the first time in weeks on Sunday.
Missiles hit a bridge on Sunday in the central city of Cherkasy connecting western Ukraine and the eastern battlefields, Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said.
Odesa regional government spokesman Serhiy Bratchuk said a rocket attack in the Odesa region of southern Ukraine had destroyed residential buildings and set fires.
Six people were injured, including a child, he added.
Western nations gathered around Kyiv when Russia invaded Ukraine in February. Still, more than four months into the war, that unity is being tested as rising inflation and energy shortages hit their own citizens.
At the summit in Germany, Mr. Biden stressed the need for unity out of concern that there were differing views in European capitals on how to handle the situation.
“From the start, Putin counted on NATO and the G7 to shatter one way or another. But we haven’t, and we won’t,” Biden said.
