DM MONITORING
MOSCOW: Russian forces shelled the entire front line in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, officials in Kyiv said on Friday, as Russia’s President Vladimir Putin accused the West of using Ukrainians as “cannon fodder” in its quest for global dominance.
Putin also said, without elaborating, that Russia would probably have to do a deal over Ukraine someday while accusing France and Germany of betrayal over past efforts to bring peace to eastern Ukraine.
In a sign of Russia’s clampdown on public dissent since it invaded Ukraine on Feb 24, a Moscow court sentenced opposition politician Ilya Yashin to eight-and-a-half years in prison on charges of spreading “false information” about the army.
Yashin had discussed in a YouTube video evidence uncovered by Western journalists of Russian war crimes in Ukraine. Moscow denies committing war crimes. In a post on his Telegram channel, Yashin urged supporters to continue opposing the war.
In Ukraine, the fiercest fighting was near the eastern towns of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, Donetsk region’s governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said in a television interview. Five civilians were killed and two wounded in Ukrainian-controlled parts of Donetsk over the previous day, he said early on Friday.
“The entire front line is being shelled,” he said, adding that Russian troops were also trying to advance near Lyman, which was recaptured by Ukrainian forces in November, one of a number of battlefield setbacks suffered by Russia in the past few months.
In an early Friday report, the Ukrainian general staff said its forces had attacked Russian positions and troop assembly points in at least half a dozen towns in the south of Ukraine.
Russian losses amounted to about 240 wounded, with three ammunition depots and about various military equipment destroyed, it added. Putin repeated an accusation that the West was “exploiting” Ukraine and using its people as “cannon fodder” in a conflict with Russia, and said the West’s desire to maintain its global dominance was increasing the risks of conflict.
“They deliberately multiply chaos and aggravate the international situation,” Putin said in a video message to a summit of defence ministers from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and a group of ex-Soviet states.
