Signaling that the Kremlin is in no mood for compromise, President Vladimir Putin said the continued use of sanctions against Russia risked causing “disastrous” increases in energy prices. Putin’s top diplomat, Sergei Lavrov, clashed with his Western counterparts at a G20 meeting where they urged Russia to allow Kyiv to ship blocked Ukrainian grain to an increasingly hungry world. Meanwhile, Moscow’s envoy in London offered little prospect of a withdrawal from parts of Ukraine under Russian control. Ambassador Andrei Kelin told Reuters that Russian troops would occupy the rest of Donbas, in eastern Ukraine, and were unlikely to withdraw from land along the southern coast. Andrei Kelin, Russia’s ambassador to Britain, is introduced in London on Thursday. (Dylan Martinez/Reuters) Ukraine would eventually have to reach a peace deal or “continue to slide down this hill” into destruction, he said. On the Donbas frontline, Ukrainian officials reported Russian shelling of towns and villages ahead of an expected push for more territory. A Ukrainian infantry unit on the road to the town of Shiversk, members of which spoke to Reuters, had set up positions at the edge of a deep earth shelter covered with logs and sandbags and defended it with machine guns. “Right now it’s more our artillery than theirs, so that’s good,” said the unit’s deputy commander. “But there may be soon.”
“Scorched Earth Tactics”
On Thursday, Putin said current prospects for a solution to the conflict were dim, saying Russia’s campaign in Ukraine had just begun. Kelin’s remarks offered insight into Russia’s potential end game — a forced partition that would leave its former Soviet neighbor deprived of more than a fifth of its post-Soviet territory. “Of course it is difficult to predict the withdrawal of our forces from the southern part of Ukraine because we already have experience that after the withdrawal the challenges start,” Kelin said. An escalation of the war was likely, he added. Ukrainian officials, echoing the comments of the deputy commander of the infantry unit outside Shiversk, said they needed more high-quality Western weapons to shore up their defenses. Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, said Ukraine still does not have enough Western weapons and soldiers need time to adjust to using them. US President Joe Biden signed off on a new arms package worth up to $400 million for Ukraine on Friday, including four additional High Mobility Artillery Missile Systems (HIMARS) and more ammunition. A cyclist walks past a half-submerged Russian missile in the middle of the road near Shiversk, Donbas region, on Friday. (Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty Images) The United States began supplying the key precision-guided missile weapon system to Ukraine last month after receiving assurances from Kyiv that it would not use them to strike targets inside Russian territory. Kyiv has attributed battlefield successes to the arrival of HIMARS. “When they went in, the Russian war machine could immediately feel its impact,” Danilov told Reuters. But more Western military aid was vital, he added. President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff also urged the West to send more heavy weapons to counter what he called Russia’s “scorched earth tactics.” A wheat field burns after shelling in Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region on Friday. (Gleb Garanich/Reuters) “With sufficient number of shells, SPGs and HIMARS, our soldiers are able to stop and drive the invaders from our land,” Andriy Yermak wrote on Twitter. Ukraine has not used HIMARS to strike Russian targets outside Ukrainian territory, a senior US defense official said on Friday, disputing Russian accusations.
“Ukraine is not your country”
At the G20 meeting in Bali, Indonesia, some of the staunchest critics of the February 24 invasion confronted Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, who stormed out of a meeting and denounced the West for “frantic criticism.” High on the list of foreign ministers’ concerns was the movement of grain shipments from Ukraine through ports blocked by Russia’s presence in the Black Sea and naval mines. Ukraine is a leading exporter and aid groups have warned that many developing countries face catastrophic food shortages if supplies do not reach them. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has urged Moscow to leave Ukrainian grain out, a Western official said. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, at the G20 summit in Bali on Friday. (Stephanie Reynolds/Reuters) “He addressed Russia directly, saying: “To our Russian colleagues: Ukraine is not your country. Her wheat is not your wheat. Why are you blocking ports? You have to let the grain come out,” the official said. A State Department official later said that Blinken had told the meeting that if the G20 was relevant, it must hold Russia accountable for its actions in Ukraine. Since launching what it calls a special operation to demilitarize Ukraine, Russia has bombed cities to rubble, killing thousands and displacing millions. Passengers are pictured on an evacuation train in Pokrovsk, Ukraine’s Donbas region, on Friday. (Nariman El-Mofty/The Associated Press) Ukraine and its Western allies say Russia is engaging in an unprovoked land grab. Russian forces have seized a large swath of territory on the southern side of Ukraine and are waging a war of attrition in the Donbass, the eastern industrial heartland made up of Luhansk and Donetsk provinces. Luhansk’s governor said Russian forces were indiscriminately shelling residential areas on Friday. “It doesn’t stop them even that civilians remain there, dying in houses and yards,” said Serhiy Gaidai. Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield accounts.
