Ukrainian defenders fought Saturday to contain Russian forces on several fronts, officials said, as the United States urged China to align with the West to oppose the invasion after an ugly G20 meeting. A rocket attack on the northeastern city of Kharkiv wounded three civilians, its governor said, although Russia’s main attacks appeared to be concentrated southeast of there in Luhansk and Donetsk. These two provinces, parts of which were held by pro-Russian separatists before the conflict began in February, make up the eastern industrial region of Donbass. Ukrainian officials reported strikes on both on Saturday, while Britain’s Ministry of Defense said Moscow was massing reserve forces from across Russia near Ukraine. Donetsk regional governor Pavlo Kirilenko told the Telegram messaging service that a Russian missile hit Druzkivka, a town behind the front line, and reported shelling of other population centers. Luhansk Governor Serhii Gaidai told Telegram that Russian forces were “firing along the entire front line,” although a subsequent Ukrainian counterattack that hit weapons and ammunition depots forced Moscow to halt its offensive. Russia, which claimed control of the entire Luhansk province last weekend, denies targeting civilians. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky fired several of Kiev’s top envoys abroad. In a decree posted on the presidential website, Zelenskiy gave no reason for firing ambassadors to Germany, India, the Czech Republic, Norway and Hungary. Zelensky urged his diplomats to rally international support and high-tech weapons to slow Russia’s advance. US President Joe Biden on Friday signed an arms package for Ukraine worth up to $400 million, including four additional High Mobility Artillery Missile Systems (HIMARS). Zelensky said that these equipments were priority needs. In response, the Russian embassy in Washington said the United States wanted to “prolong the conflict at any cost.” CHINA-US TRIBES On Saturday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, urging the international community to join forces to condemn Russian aggression, told reporters he had raised concerns with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi about Beijing’s alignment with Moscow. The pair had more than five hours of talks on the sidelines of the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting on the Indonesian island of Bali. On Friday, Russia’s Sergei Lavrov walked out of a meeting there, denouncing the West for “frantic criticism”. China’s foreign ministry said, without elaborating, that Wang and Blinken discussed “the Ukraine issue.” It also quoted Wang as saying that Sino-US relations are in danger of drifting further, with many people believing that “the United States is suffering from an increasingly serious crisis of ‘cinephobia’.” Shortly before the Russian invasion, Beijing and Moscow announced a “borderless” cooperation, although US officials said they had not seen China evading US sanctions on Russia or supplying it with military equipment. Kharkiv Governor Oleh Synehubov told Telegram that, in addition to the missile attack, the fighters repelled two Russian attacks near Dementiivka, a town located between the city and the border with Russia. Russia’s defense ministry said its forces struck two “foreign mercenary bases deployed near Kharkiv”. Ministry spokesman Igor Konasenkov also said troops destroyed ammunition depots in the Mykolayiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk regions. Russian-backed forces on the territory of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) said three people were killed and 17 wounded there in the past 24 hours as Ukrainian forces shelled 10 locations. Alexei Kulemzin, mayor of Donetsk, wrote on Telegram that two women died as a result of shelling in the city’s Kirovskyi district. Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield accounts. SANCTIONS After Friday’s tentative exchanges at the G20, President Vladimir Putin also signaled the Kremlin was in no mood for compromise, saying sanctions against Russia risked triggering “disastrous” increases in energy prices. Putin had indicated on Thursday that prospects for a solution to the conflict were currently limited, saying that Russia’s campaign in Ukraine had only just begun. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Saturday that the sanctions were working and echoed calls for more deliveries of Western precision weapons. “The Russians are desperately trying to lift these sanctions that are proving to be hurting them. Sanctions must therefore be intensified until Putin abandons his aggressive plans,” Kuleba told a forum in Dubrovnik via video link. Since Russia, which has also seized a large swath of territory in southern Ukraine, launched what it calls a “special operation” to demilitarize Ukraine, cities have been bombed to rubble, thousands killed and millions displaced. Ukraine and its Western allies say Russia is engaging in an unprovoked land grab.
