May 31, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Ukraine is working on an “UN-led naval operation” with navies of partnering countries to ensure a safe trade route for exporting its agricultural products, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Tuesday.   

In the tweet, the foreign minister blamed Russia of playing "hunger games with the world by blocking Ukrainian food exports with one hand and trying to shift the blame on Ukraine with the other."   

During a phone call on Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky that Ankara places a “particular importance” on efforts to establish a safe corridor to export Ukrainian agricultural products by sea, according to a Turkish readout of the call.   

As far as Moscow's cooperation is concerned, earlier on Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed that if Ukraine clears its coastal waters from mines, Russian naval forces will guarantee the passage of grain ships to the Mediterranean Sea.  

More background: On Friday, Zelensky said that 22 million tons of grain, accounting for nearly half of Ukraine’s grain export supply, is being held up by Russia's blockade of the main export routes through the Black Sea and Azov Sea.    

The Kremlin has repeatedly rejected the accusations that it has blocked grain supplies from Ukraine and has accused the West of actions that have led to this crisis.  

With previous reporting from CNN’s Isil Sariyuce, Anna Chernova and Anastasia Graham-Yooll  

US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said US President Joe Biden's administration has been "clear from day one" that they would only provide Ukraine with defensive weapons to fight Russia.

More context: Biden said Monday that the US "won't send anything that can fire into Russia." Ukrainians have repeatedly called for international partners to send them Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS) to fight the war.

CNN reported last week that the Biden administration is preparing to step up the kind of weaponry it is offering Ukraine by sending advanced, long-range rocket systems, multiple officials say. 

Serhiy Hayday, the Head of Luhansk region military administration, says that Russian troops now control most of the city of Severodonetsk — but he has dismissed suggestions that Ukrainian troops in the area will be surrounded. 

Hayday said: "Now there is no possibility to leave Severodonetsk. It's very risky and the chances are very small to actually escape [unharmed]. Therefore, there is simply no point in risking people's lives."

Hayday added that the Russian goal was to surround all our troops. Of course, they would like to capture the entire Luhansk region much faster. Or just cut the route "Lysychansk - Bakhmut" or capture Severodonetsk as soon as possible. But they do not manage to capture the whole area."

If Russian forces gain control of Severodonetsk, the neighboring city of Lysychansk will be the only urban area of any size in Luhansk to remain under Ukrainian control. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday welcomed the new European Union sanctions package against Moscow, but criticized the bloc for the gap of more than 50 days between the fifth and sixth round of sanctions.   

More on the sanctions: The EU agreed to ban 90% of Russian oil imports by the end of the year, the leaders of the European Council said Monday.

Russian oil delivered by tankers would be banned, while an exemption will be made for the southern segment of the Druzhba pipeline, said Ursula von der Leyen — president of the European Commission — in a news conference.

The northern segment of the pipeline serves Poland and Germany — who have agreed to the embargo. The southern part goes to Hungary, Slovakia and Czech republic.

Von der Leyen said an exemption will be made for the southern segment, which accounts for 10% of imports on Russian oil.

A Ukrainian official in Luhansk region has acknowledged that most rural settlements around the city of Severodonetsk have now fallen to the Russians.

Lysychansk is just across the Donets river from Severodonetsk, but it's unclear how many bridges are still intact. 

Vlasenko's remarks suggest that the routes available for any withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from Severodonetsk are narrowing. Resupply lines from the town of Bakhmut, which is also under frequent artillery attack, are tenuous, with persistent shelling. 

Evacuation of civilians from Severodonetsk has been suspended. 

Serhiy Hayday, the head of Luhansk's regional administration, said that a Russian air strike in Severodonetsk had hit a tank of nitric acid at a chemical plant and warned people in the city to stay in shelters. 

An officer in the Luhansk People's Militia, which supports Russian forces, says that Ukrainian forces are using bomb shelters and the city's industrial zone — a complex of heavy manufacturing plants — to resist.

Andrey Marochko, a lieutenant colonel in the militia, told Russian media that the Ukrainians are also using higher ground across the river to shell the militia.

"Nearby is the city of Lysychansk [which] is located on a hill and it is from there that the armed formations of Ukraine are firing at the city of Severodonetsk," he said.

Marochko claimed that the Ukrainians' main supply route from Bakhmut had been cut. "We control almost all logistics, but the enemy is trying in a roundabout way to supply this settlement by moving between forests on dirt roads."

The Ukrainian side has acknowledged that it has become more difficult to use the main highway from Bakhmut because of constant shelling, and that it is using other ways of reaching the cities at the frontlines.

Jailed Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny said Tuesday that he might face up to another 15 years in prison if found guilty of new charges for “creating an extremist organization.”  

“It turns out that I created an extremist group to incite hatred towards officials and oligarchs,” the Russian opposition leader said in an Instagram post.  

In March, Navalny was sentenced to nine years in a maximum-security jail, after being convicted on fraud charges by the Lefortovo court in Moscow over allegations that he stole from his Anti-Corruption Foundation. The sentencing came while he was already serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence in a detention center east of the Russian capital after being arrested in February 2021 for violating probation terms.  

The leader of the self-declared Luhansk People's Republic (LPR), Leonid Pasechnik, says that the Russian operation to seize the city of Severodonetsk "is not going as fast as we would like."

Quoted by the Russian news agency TASS, Pasechnik said the "liberation of the city is complicated by the defense in depth of the Armed Forces of Ukraine."

He said one-third of the city was now under the control of Russian and LPR forces.

"First of all, we want to preserve the city's infrastructure as much as possible," Pasechnik said — although Russian bombardment of Severodonetsk has been responsible for much of the destruction.

Pasechnik alleged that the goals of the Ukrainian side are "opposite, so their tactics of hiding behind the civilian population has been actively used in Severodonetsk since the beginning of the military operation." 

Both sides report heavy fighting in the city itself, with several Ukrainian officials confirming that part of it is under Russian control.

Russian forces have continued missile and aerial attacks against targets in the Donetsk region, where the Ukrainian military says there are "battles along the entire front line."

The Ukrainian president's office said Tuesday that "there was an air strike on Sloviansk [overnight]. As a result, at least three people are dead and six were wounded. The school and seven high-rise buildings were damaged. Rescue work is underway, the number of victims and injured is being clarified."

Sloviansk, a major target of the Russian offensive, has seen an uptick in indirect fire from Russian forces using missiles and aerial attacks.

In the neighboring Luhansk region, 90% of which is now under Russian control, the president's office said that "the main efforts of the Russians are now focused on establishing control over Severodonetsk." It said that they were continuing attacks on several neighboring towns and two civilians were killed. 

Ukrainian troops are still in Severodonetsk, but Russian forces control part of the city. Up to 15,000 civilians remain in the city, which is without power and water.

Elsewhere, there were additional Russian attacks across the border into the northern Sumy region by both aircraft and artillery, the presidency said.

German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said Tuesday that Europe’s “strength and determination has certainly suffered” during the "wrangling" between the European Union member states over the new sanctions against Russia agreed by the bloc on Monday.  

Habeck accused Hungarian leader Viktor Orban of “ruthlessly” persevering his “own interests" during the negotiations of the sixth package of EU sanctions against Moscow.  

The minister said there was a confusion between a short-term perspective of one's own country and a long-term observing of principles which could only be embraced globally.  

“I am irritated, and this is the polite way of putting it — how Viktor Orban can intervene so deeply that you ruthlessly just play poker for your own interests,“ Habeck said.   

The big goal of this time for Europe is to achieve unity as an economic region, the minister stressed. 

 “Europe has to reinvent itself,” he said.