Explosions shook kyiv early on Sunday, June 5, and air raid warnings sounded in several other localities in Ukraine. For his part, the mayor of the capital Vitali Klitschko reported in the morning of several explosions, in the districts of Darnytsky and Dnipropetrovsky, injuring one person.
In the east of the country, “street fighting” is taking place in Severodonetsk, a strategic city in the east where Moscow has lost ground, according to the regional governor. For the moment in any case, more than 100 days after the start of the conflict, the Russian troops were concentrating their offensive on the large mining basin of Donbass, an eastern region partially in the hands of pro-Russian separatists since 2014 and which they hope to conquer entirely. .
The Russians have lost ground in Severodonetsk, a key city in eastern Ukraine and the epicenter of fierce fighting for control of Donbass, the regional governor said on Sunday. “The Russians controlled about 70% of the city, but in the last two days they were pushed back.”
“The city is divided in two, they are afraid to move freely there”, informed on Telegram Serguiï Gaïdaï, governor of the Lugansk region, partly controlled by pro-Russian separatists since 2014, and of which Severodonetsk is the administrative capital. Ukrainian. Ukrainian forces are seeking to “restore full control” of Severodonetsk, city mayor Olexander Striouk said on Saturday evening June 4.
“Explosions” shook kyiv this Sunday morning, said its mayor Vitali Klitschko in a message on Telegram. “Several explosions in the Darnytsky and Dniprovsky districts of the city. The services are putting out” the fire, wrote the mayor of the Ukrainian capital.
“The aggressor continues to launch missiles and conduct airstrikes on military and civilian infrastructure of our country, especially in Kyiv,” the Ukrainian army general staff wrote on its Facebook page. The capital, around which the Russian noose loosened in late March and early April, was particularly hit on April 28, the day of the visit of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, “five missiles” then fell on kyiv.
The Senegalese head of state and current chairman of the African Union, Macky Sall, said on Saturday in Accra that he intended to visit Ukraine after being received in Russia on Friday by his counterpart Vladimir Putin.
“Yes (…) I will also go to kyiv. It is important to contribute to the return of peace,” Macky Sall told reporters on arriving at a summit of the Economic Community of African States in West (ECOWAS).
A wooden church of a famous Orthodox monastery in eastern Ukraine has been destroyed following a new Russian bombardment, Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday, recalling that the previous one killed four monks there this week.
“Russian artillery again today struck the Svyatogirsk Lavra”, in the Donetsk region, one of the main Orthodox monasteries of Ukraine, the president wrote on Telegram, posting a video of the skite of Tous the Saints on fire. He recalled that the monastery had already been hit this week by Russian bombardments “having killed four monks and seriously injured four others”.
The head of Ukrainian diplomacy Dmytro Kouleba on Saturday castigated French President Emmanuel Macron’s calls not to “humiliate” Russia. “Calls to avoid humiliating Russia can only humiliate France or any other country. Because it is Russia humiliating itself. We all better focus on how to put Russia in its place This will bring peace and save lives,” Dmytro Kouleba said in a tweet.
The French president repeated on Friday June 3 that we must “not humiliate Russia” – remarks very badly perceived in eastern Europe – “so that the day the fighting stops, we can build a path of exit through diplomatic channels.
