Russia and Ukraine keep firing at each other…..
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US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, has said Russian forces will try to make further advances in the “weeks ahead” and try to carve out a “buffer zone” along the Ukrainian border. “This is a hard and dangerous fight but Ukraine’s defenders are showing extraordinary courage and skill,” Austin said as he delivered the opening remarks at the 22nd Ramstein-format summit of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group. The military support being delivered includes 155mm artillery rounds, ammunition for himars rockets, air defence capabilities and anti-armour systems. Austin said the US will continue to approve “substantial” security assistance packages to Ukraine, meaning a “steady flow” of aid will be given to Kyiv “week after week”.
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Ukraine still controls about 60% of Vovchansk, an almost deserted town in its northeastern Kharkiv region, despite a relentless Russian offensive, according to deputy governor Roman Semenukha. He said: “The enemy continues to try, especially inside Vovchansk, to push the Ukrainian armed forces out of the town. About 60% of the city is controlled by the Ukrainian armed forces, meaning that the assaults do not stop.”
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The Russian military has taken full control of the village of Bilohorivka in the Luhansk region of Ukraine and has taken up better positions there, Russia’s defence ministry said. The ministry said in a statement its forces had also been involved in fierce clashes in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region near Vovchansk, Starytsia and Hlyboke where it said they had repelled two counterattacks.
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Russian shelling killed one person in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, regional authorities said. “Another resident of Kherson was killed by Russian shelling,” the region’s governor Oleksandr Prokudin, wrote on Telegram, adding that a 72-year-old man had also been injured in the attack. Zaporizhzhia region head Ivan Fedorov, meanwhile, said Russian forces shelled the village of Stepnogirsk, killing one man.
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A Ukrainian rocket attack targeted a Russian military base in occupied Luhansk’s suburb of Yuvileine on Monday, according to regional governor Artem Lysohor. According to Lysohor, Luhansk’s residents said Russian forces had set up a military camp near civilian buildings in the village.
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The US treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, will call on Tuesday for Europe and the US to stand together against Russian aggression, including finding a way forward to unlock the value of frozen Russian sovereign assets to aid Ukraine….
May 20, 2024 – ISW Press
Ukrainian sources indicated that Russian forces are concentrating limited, understaffed, and incohesive forces in the Sumy direction, but even such a Russian grouping of forces will be able to achieve the likely desired effect of drawing and fixing Ukrainian forces in the international border area. The deputy commander of a Ukrainian brigade operating in northern Kharkiv Oblast reported on May 20 that Russian forces, including Chechen forces, are accumulating in the Sumy direction but that the limited number of Russian personnel suggests that the Russian objective is to draw and fix Ukrainian forces to the international border area.