Ukrainian servicemen unload a plane with US Javelin anti-tank missiles at Kyiv’s Boryspil Airport, February 11,2022 (Sergey Supinsky/AP/Getty)


Tuesday’s Coverage: EU Agrees Phased Cutoff of Russia’s Oil


Source: Institute for the Study of War


UPDATE 1414 GMT:

The mayor of Sievierodonetsk in eastern Ukraine, Oleksandr Stryuk, says a Russian offensive has overrun 60% of the city.

Stryuk said 20% is still controlled by Ukrainian forces and 20% is “no-man’s land”.

The 20% is being fiercely defended by our armed forces. Our troops are holding defensive lines. Attempts are being made to drive out the Russian troops.

We have hope that despite everything we will free the city and not allow it to be completely occupied.


UPDATE 1257 GMT:

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has acknowledged in an interview on US television:

The situation is very difficult; we’re losing 60-100 soldiers per day as killed in action and something around 500 people as wounded in action. So we are holding our defensive perimeters.

The Ukraine military claimed on Tuesday that more than 30,500 Russian soldiers have been killed during the invasion.

Western officials estimate that about 15,000 Russian troops have been killed and 40,000 wounded. They support Zelenskiy’s summary of Ukrainian casualties.


UPDATE 1249 GMT:

Residents of the occupied Kherson region in southern Ukraine have given multiple accounts of torture by Russian forces.

Olexander Guz, a deputy in the village of Bilozerka, spoke of beatings which left him severely bruised:

“They put a bag on my head. [They] threatened that I would not have kidneys left….

They tied a rope around my neck and another around my wrists….

“When I didn’t answer them, they hit me between my legs. When I fell, I started to suffocate. As you try to get up, they beat you. Then they ask again.

Journalist Oleh Baturin said he was kidnapped and imprisoned for more than a week. He heard others being tortured and witnessed a young man’s mock execution.

Baturin was beaten “on the back, ribs and legs” with “the butt of a machine gun” and suffered four broken ribs.

A doctor who worked in a hospital in Kherson confirmed signs of electrocution, traces of binding on the hands, strangulation marks on the neck, and burns on people’s feet and hands.


UPDATE 1048 GMT:

Russia’s gas exports outside its sphere of influence in eastern Europe fell 27.6% from January to May, according to Russian State company Gazprom.

Gazprom maintained that exports to China are growing, but did not give any figures.


UPDATE 1037 GMT:

Russia has cut off gas supplies to Denmark, after Copenhagen refused to bow to Vladimir Putin’s ultimatum to pay in roubles.

Danish officials and energy executives have said arrangements have been made with other sources to make up for the loss of Russian supply.

Mads Nipper, the CEO of Danish energy company Orsted, said “We stand firm in our refusal to pay in rubles, and we’ve been preparing for this scenario. The situation underpins the need of the European Union becoming independent of Russian gas by accelerating the build-out of renewable energy.”

Russia has already suspended gas supplies to Finland, Poland and Bulgaria, and said it would cut off deliveries to the Netherlands from yesterday.


UPDATE 0958 GMT:

Chancellor Olaf Scholz says Germany will supply Ukraine with the IRIS-T air defense system.

The Zelenskiy Government and German allies have called on Berlin to provide the assistance, with the Scholz Government accused of protracted deliberations and lack of commitment over provision of armored vehicles and heavy artillery.

Scholz told Bundestag lawmakers that in a “massive change of policy”, Germany has been “delivering continuously since the beginning of the war”, including more than 15 million rounds of ammunition, 100,000 grenades and more than 5,000 anti-tank mines.


UPDATE 0814 GMT:

Russian shelling has killed another four civilians in the Kharkiv region in northeast Ukraine, according to Governor Oleh Synyehubov.

Synyehubov said the victims included a woman and a 12-year-old boy. Seven other civilians were injured.


UPDATE 0739 GMT:

The Swiss Government has vetoed Denmark’s request to send Swiss-made armored personnel carriers to Ukraine.

The Government again cited its neutrality policy of not supplying arms to conflict zones.

In April, Switzerland blocked the re-export of Swiss-made ammunition used in anti-aircraft tanks that Germany intended to send to Ukraine, and it rejected Polish request for arms to assist Kyiv.


UPDATE 0637 GMT:

In his nightly address to the nation, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy spoke of the European Union’s compromise sixth package of aid to Ukraine and sanctions on Russia, agreed late Monday after Hungary’s objections were finally overcome.

The package bars all seaborne oil imports from Russia. Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic will be allowed to take pipeline imports.

The measure is expect to reduce imports of Russian oil by 75% immediately and up to 90% by the end of 2022.

Zelenskiy said, “I am grateful to everyone who worked to reach this agreement. The practical result is tens of billions of euros which Russia will now be unable to finance terror….Strategically, this leaves Russia on the sidelines of the modern economy.”


ORIGINAL ENTRY: The US is sending advanced, high-mobility, medium-range rocket systems to Ukraine in the hope of checking any further Russian seizure of territory in the east and south of the country.

President Joe Biden confirmed the decision late Tuesday, after days of deliberation by the Administration.

The outcome is a compromise. On Monday, Biden rejected the dispatch of long-range systems with a range of up to 300 km (186 miles) because they could be used to strike far inside Russian territory.

But after initial defeats and months of struggle, Vladimir Putin’s invasion is seizing territory in the south and east of Ukraine. The port city of Mariupol was finally conquered earlier this month, and Russian forces have taken more than half of Sievierodonetsk, the easternmost city under Ukrainian control.

The wheel-mounted M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) can carry a container with six rockets. The medium-range rockets have a range of 80 km (50 miles), about twice that of M777 howitzers that the US recently supplied to Ukraine.

The track-mounted M270 HIMARS, developed in the 1970s, can carry a double container for 12 rockets. Biden’s veto on Monday was of the Army Tactical Missile System, with its distance of 300 km.

The rocket systems are part of another $700 million in US military aid, including helicopters, Javelin anti-tank missile systems, anti-armor weapons, tactical vehicles, and counter-fire and surveillance radars.

Biden said the weapons will help Ukraine “more precisely strike key targets on the battlefield”. “Senior US administration officials” said Kyiv’s officials gave assurances that “these systems will be used by the Ukrainians to repel Russian advances on Ukrainian territory, but they will not be used on targets in Russian territory”.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov protested: “Attempts to present the decision as containing an element of ‘self-restraint’ are useless. The fact that the United States, at the head of a group of states, is engaged in a purposeful pumping of weapons into the Kyiv regime is an obvious thing.”

Russians Advance Inside Sievierodonetsk

Massing forces and artillery in the remaining Ukrainian-held parts of the Luhansk oblast in eastern Ukraine, Russia’s offensive has taken most of the city of Sievierodonetsk.

Luhansk governor Serhiy Haidai confirmed the Russian advance after all “critical infrastructure” in the city, with a pre-invasion population of about 100,000, has been destroyed by shelling.

Mayor Oleksandr Striuk said artillery bombardment is threatening the lives of about 13,000 remaining civilians, with evacuations no longer possible amid street fighting: “The situation is very serious and the city is essentially being destroyed ruthlessly block by block.”

On Tuesday, a Russian airstrike hit a tank with nitric acid at a chemical plant. Haidai urged residents to stay in shelters because of the acid’s dangerous effects.

Ukraine President Zelenskiy spoke of the “madness” of the attack: “Given the presence of large-scale chemical production in Sievierodonetsk, the Russian army’s strikes there, including blind air bombing, are just crazy.”