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An official in Russia in Ukraine’s Kherson region said the pro-Kremlin administration of the region would ask Moscow to establish a military base there.
“There must be a Russian military base in the Kherson region,” said Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the administration established by Russia in Kherson, according to the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti. “We will want it, the whole population is interested in it. It is vital and will be a guarantee of safety for the area and its inhabitants.”
Russian forces took control of the Kherson region in southeastern Ukraine early in the war and established its own rule there. Ukrainian officials have suggested that Russia plans to hold a referendum to declare independence in the region, similar to what took place in the East Donetsk and Luhansk regions in 2014. Moscow recognized the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk two days before invading Ukraine. and used it as an excuse to send troops to his former Soviet neighbor.
Stremousov rejected such plans earlier this month and said he would ask the Kremlin to make the region part of Russia instead. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the people of Kherson will decide how and where they want to live.
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IMPORTANT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR:
Russia sentenced to life in Ukraine’s 1st war crimes trial
– The Pentagon says more high-tech weapons will go to Ukraine
– After 3 months of war, life in Russia has changed profoundly
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:
LONDON — Russian forces are intensifying efforts to encircle and seize Severodonetsk and neighboring cities, the only part of the Luhansk region remaining under Ukrainian government control, British military officials said.
The British Ministry of Defense said in a briefing released Tuesday morning that the northern and southern arms of the Russian operation are currently separated by about 25 kilometers (15 mi) in Ukrainian hands.
The ministry said Russian forces had “some local successes” despite strong resistance from Ukrainian troops occupying well-dug defensive positions.
The ministry said the battle of Severodonetsk was only part of Russia’s campaign to take the greater Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, and that the fall of the city could cause logistical problems for the Kremlin.
“If the Donbas front line moves further west, this will expand Russian lines of communication and will likely see its forces face more logistical supply challenges,” the ministry said.
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KYIV, Ukraine – Four people were killed in a Russian bombardment of a residential building in Sievierodonetsk, Serhiy Haidai, governor of Ukraine’s Luhansk region, said on Tuesday. He did not specify when the bombardment took place.
Russian forces have been trying to take control of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk in the region in recent weeks, placing both cities under heavy bombardment.
Haidai said the most recent shelling damaged six homes in each of the two cities.
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MANILA, Philippines – Outgoing Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte harshly criticized Russian leader Vladimir Putin for killing innocent civilians in Ukraine, and while the two were labeled as murderers, he said, “I kill criminals, I don’t kill children and the elderly. ”
Openly describing Putin as an idol and a friend, Duterte for the first time scolded Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in remarks published on Tuesday that he blames the three-month war for the rise in global oil prices that has battered many countries. Including the Philippines.
While Duterte stressed that he did not condemn the Russian President, he opposed Putin’s labeling of the invasion as a “special military operation” and said it was truly a large-scale war against a “sovereign nation”.
Addressing Putin as a “friend” and the Russian Embassy in Manila, Duterte urged them to stop bombing residential areas and stop artillery and allow the safe evacuation of innocent civilians before launching a bombardment.
“I’m dating and I don’t know how to fix the problem,” Duterte said. “Before you talk about a return to normalcy, you need to resolve the war between Ukraine and Russia,” he said.
Leaving office on June 30 as his turbulent six-year term ended, Duterte presided over a brutal anti-drug crackdown that killed more than 6,000 people, many of whom were minor suspects.
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UNITED NATIONS – The United States and Britain accuse Russia of spreading disinformation online and manipulating public opinion about the war in Ukraine, and vehemently reject Russia’s claims that it aims to control all Western information flows and define what is right and wrong.
Britain’s deputy ambassador, James Roscoe, said at a UN Security Council meeting on the use of digital technologies in peacekeeping that Russia had launched cyberattacks and used an “online troll factory to spread disinformation about its wars and manipulate public opinion”.
US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said the Russian government “continues to shut down, restrict and disrupt internet connectivity, censor content, spread disinformation online, and intimidate and arrest journalists for reporting the truth about the invasion.”
Vassily Nebenzia, Russian Ambassador to the UN, accused countries that call themselves the “community of democracies” of building “cyber-totalitarianism” and, together with technology giants like Meta, shutting down Russian TV channels, deporting Russian journalists and blocking access to Russian websites.
Nebenzia once again accused Western governments and media of fabricating the story of the Russian army killing civilians in Bucha, near Kyiv. He claimed that civilians died from injuries caused by artillery shells fired from obsolete equipment used by the Ukrainian military.
Britain’s Roscoe disputed Russia’s claims of “progressive provocation” and claims that Ukrainians were responsible for civilian deaths after retaking the city, saying satellite imagery proved that Russia was there for several weeks as it controlled Bucha.
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Luhansk Governor Serhiy Haidai said that the police continue to evacuate daily due to the war with Russia and the number of people who want to leave has increased.
On Monday, Haidai posted a video on Facebook of a vehicle he said was traveling on a highway near Sievierodonetsk. The vehicle is speeding along the road, dodging debris, piles of dirt, barricades and destroyed vehicles, while shells explode in the fields just meters away.
A photo included in the post shows a dozen civilians and their luggage tightly packed in what appears to be the back of a vehicle.
Haidai wrote that people “accepted the risk because what happened in the cities was much worse.”
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KYIV, Ukraine – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russia is waging “total war” on his country, which includes inflicting as many casualties and infrastructure destruction as possible.
Zelenskyy made the comments in a late-night speech Monday, on the eve of the three-month anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The report noted that since February 24, the Russian army launched 1,474 missile attacks on Ukraine using 2,275 different missiles. He said the vast majority hit civilian targets. More than 3,000 Russian airstrikes took place during this time.
Indeed, there has not been such a war on the European continent for 77 years,” he said.
Zelenskyy said 87 people were killed in the attack on the town of Desna, 55 kilometers (34 miles) north of Kiev.
Zelenskyy said the Russians concentrated their forces on Donbas cities such as Bakhmut, Popasnaya and Sievierodonetsk.
He urged the Ukrainians who were not on the battlefield to help in any way they could, and said that his task was to increase international pressure on Russia. “The absolute priority for Ukraine is arms and ammunition.”
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