Two Britons and a Moroccan were sentenced to death on Thursday by pro-Russian separatists accused of acting as “mercenaries” from Ukraine, who demanded weapons to prevent the strategic city of Severodonetsk from falling into Russian hands.
Severodonetsk and neighboring Lysychansk became the center of the Russian offensive in an attempt to seize the entire Donbass mining area of eastern Ukraine.
Brits Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner and Moroccan Saadun Brahim have been fully captured by separatists who have already controlled this region since 2014.
The three people were “accused of participating as mercenaries in the conflict” and sentenced to death by the Donetsk People’s Republic Supreme Court (recognized only by Russia), the official Russian news agency TASS reported.
The British government expressed “deep concern” at these penalties and demanded that its citizens be treated as “prisoners of war”.
Russian news agency Interfax said that during the hearing, the three pleaded guilty to “acting with the aim of overthrowing the constitutional order of the Donetsk People’s Republic and seizing power”.
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, thousands of foreign volunteers have enlisted to fight alongside Ukrainian troops.
Moscow said it bombed a training center for “foreign mercenaries” in the Zhitomir district, west of Kiev.
The “fate” of Donbass is at stake
Ukraine has once again requested “long-range” Western weapons such as the 80km range Himars, which the United States announced earlier this month.
Sergei Gaiday, the governor of Lugansk, one of the Donbass regions, said on Thursday that Ukrainian troops could regain control of Severodonetsk with these devices “within two or three days”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian troops fought one of the “hardest” battles at the battle of Severodonetsk, which was largely under the control of Russian troops.
In many ways, the fate of Donbass is determined there,” he said.
According to the lawyer of a Ukrainian businessman who owns the facility, about 800 civilians were trapped in the Azot chemical plant of the city they sought refuge.
So far, the Ukrainian authorities have not confirmed the information.
“There is no one to help me”
Across the Donets River, Lysychansk remains entirely under Kiev’s control, but the scene of the “chaotic” bombings, in the words of Gaiday, who accused the Russians of “deliberately” setting fire to hospitals and aid distribution centres.
“There is no one to help me,” Yuriy Krasnikov, who retired from a neighborhood full of destroyed houses in Lysychansk, told AFP.
After more than 100 days of war, Russian troops continue to bombard many places in the neighboring country.
At least four people have died in the past 24 hours in the village of Toshkivka, about 25 km south of Severodonetsk, according to the Ukrainian presidency.
Four more died in Donetsk, and two more were killed in the city of Kharkov, the country’s second in the northeast.
Ukrainian Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky said in Kiev that the capital is not in immediate danger, although Ukrainian troops maintain a defensive line around the city.
In Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin compared his actions to those of Tsar Peter the Great, who went to war with Sweden in the 18th century and occupied part of its territory.
Putin, “while fighting Sweden, gave the impression that he was seizing something. But he was not seizing anything, he was retrieving something,” said Putin, adding that it was the Russians’ responsibility to “recover and strengthen” the lost lands. , a clear allusion to the current offensive in Ukraine.
global results
Ukraine’s state statistics agency announced that Ukraine’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) fell by 15.1 percent in the first quarter of 2022 compared to the same period of the previous year, as a result of the war. In this period, the inflation rate reached 18%.
But the war between Russia and Ukraine, the two major suppliers of raw materials and food, is also a war on a global scale, with a direct impact on rapidly rising inflation on all continents.
“The impact of war on food security, energy and finance is systematic, severe and accelerating,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
After accusing Moscow of fomenting a global grain crisis, Zelensky on Thursday urged Russia to remove it from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
The UN agency warned in a report that the poorest countries will suffer the most from the food crisis because they “pay more but get less”.
Africa and the Middle East will be particularly affected. Indeed, Senegalese President and current African Union President Macky Sall is demining the Ukrainian port of Odessa to allow grain exports to his continent.
Kyiv refuses to clear mines from this port, fearing that Moscow will use the opportunity to attack the city.
source: Noticias
[author_name]
