Russia today warned of the “real” risk of World War III, after top US officials visited Ukraine and assured them that it was possible to win the conflict “with the appropriate equipment.”
In the face of unprecedented sanctions against Moscow by Western countries and increased military support for Ukraine, Russian diplomat Sergei Lavrov warned that “the danger (a world war) is serious, real, cannot be taken lightly”.
Lavrov also accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of “faking” the negotiations. “He’s a good actor, but if you look carefully and read carefully what he says, you’ll find thousands of contradictions,” he said.
Lavrov continued, “There are limits to goodwill, but if it is not mutual, it does not contribute to the negotiation process. But we continue to hold talks with the team that Zelensky sent.”
More than two months ago, since the beginning of the war, Zelensky has repeatedly asked the Western Allies to send heavier weapons against Russia’s theoretical military superiority.
And the demands seem to be effective. Several NATO countries have pledged to supply Ukraine with heavy weapons and equipment, despite protests from Moscow in recent days.
Visit of US officials
This growing support was evident during a visit to Kiev on Sunday by two senior US officials, Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who met with Zelensky for three hours.
“The first step to winning is believing you can win. And they believe they can,” Austin told a group of reporters after the meeting. If they have the right equipment and the right support, they can win.”
In an earlier speech, President Zelensky said that Ukraine’s victory is imminent and that “thanks to the courage” of the people, Ukraine is a “true symbol of the struggle for freedom”.
During the visit, Austin and Blinken announced that additional $700 million in military aid had been sent, bringing the total U.S. contribution to $3.4 billion.
“We want to see Russia become too weak to do what it did when it invaded Russia,” Austin said after returning to Poland on Monday. said.
In addition to this support, Britain will send a “small quantity” of Stormer armored anti-aircraft rocket launchers, the defense minister said.
The United States took advantage of a meeting with Zelensky to announce the gradual reopening of the American embassy in Kiev and the appointment of Bridget Brink, the current ambassador to Slovakia, who has been vacant since 2019.
Russia condemns border attacks
On the battlefield now concentrated in eastern and southern Ukraine, conflicts continued to wreak havoc in Ukraine, eclipsing Easter celebrations in this mostly Orthodox country.
According to the local prosecutor’s office, at least five people were killed and 18 injured in a Russian bombing attack on railway facilities in the cities of Khmerynka and Koziatyn (Vinnytsia region, midwest).
The governor of the Belgorod region, on Russia’s border with Ukraine, accused Kiev of bombing a village, injuring two civilians and damaging two houses.
Russia has repeatedly accused Ukraine of attacking its territory, in particular two villages in Belgorod and a village in the Briansk region.
Russian authorities also reported that a fire of undetermined origin broke out in a fuel depot in Bryansk that served as a logistical base for their forces, and that two UAVs were shot down in the Kursk region, also on the Ukrainian border.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the air force had hit 82 military targets, including four command posts and two oil depots. They also claim to have hit 27 targets with high-precision missiles.
The Ukrainian ministry claimed that Russia’s partners attacked infrastructure and military aid supply lines.
Clashes also continue in the Kharkov region (Ukraine’s second largest city, northeast), where daily shelling has forced civilians to sleep in underground bunkers for weeks.
EU helps ICC
The conflict, which began with the Russian invasion on February 24, has entered its third month with thousands of dead, more than five million exiles and millions of people internally displaced by violence.
The bloodiest battle took place in the port city of Mariupol (southeast), on the Sea of Azov, at the Azovstal power plant, almost entirely controlled by the Russians, despite thousands of people resisting in precarious conditions.
Ukraine accused Russian forces of waging hostility towards the complex despite Vladimir Putin’s orders not to attack, and Russia said it was preventing Kiev’s soldiers and civilians from leaving the authorized humanitarian corridors.
The city is at the center of Moscow’s plans to open a land bridge between the pro-Russian separatist regions of the Donbass and the peninsula of Crimea, which has been annexed since 2014.
The conflict also interrupted all diplomatic cooperation between Russia and Western countries. Moscow on Monday announced the expulsion of 40 German diplomats in response to a similar action taken by Berlin in early April following the start of the Russian offensive.
In The Hague, the Prosecutor’s Office of the International Criminal Court announced that it will join the European Union’s investigation into possible international crimes committed in Ukraine.
In this context, UN Secretary-General António Guterres is visiting Turkey, a country that is trying to mediate in the conflict, before heading to Moscow today and then to Kiev on Tuesday.
source: Noticias
