BSS :
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement that his nuclear forces were on alert sparked outcry in the West as the invading troops faced stiff resistance on Monday.The UN General Assembly will hold a rare emergency session on Monday to discuss the conflict, which has claimed dozens of lives and raised fears that it will displace millions of people.
Ukraine has also said it had agreed to send a delegation to meet Russian representatives on the border with Belarus, which would be the two sides’ first public contact since war erupted.
Russia invaded on Thursday and quickly announced it had neutralised key Ukrainian military facilities, but fierce fighting has since raged. Ukraine forces, backed by Western arms, are stymieing the advance of Russian troops, according to the United States, which has led Western condemnation and a campaign of sanctions.
Putin ordered Sunday Russia’s nuclear forces onto high alert in response to what he called “unfriendly” steps by the West. Russia has the world’s largest arsenal of nuclear weapons and a huge cache of ballistic missiles.
The United States, the world’s second largest nuclear power, slammed
Putin’s order as “totally unacceptable”. Germany said Putin’s nuclear order was because his offensive had “halted” and was not going to plan.
Ahead of the planned talks with Russia and as Ukrainian forces defended key
cities, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba voiced defiance. “We will not capitulate, we will not give up a single inch of our territory,” Kuleba said.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was sceptical about the talks. “As always: I do not really believe in the outcome of this meeting, but let them try,” he said.
On day four of an invasion that stunned the world, Ukrainian forces said Sunday they had defeated a Russian incursion into Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv, 500 kilometres (310 miles) east of Kyiv.
A regional official, Oleg Sinegubov, said Kharkiv had been brought under
Ukrainian control and the army was expelling Russian forces. Moscow has made better progress in the south, however, and said it was besieging the cities of Kherson and Berdyansk.Both are located close to the Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, and from which it launched one of several invasion forces. Ukrainian officials said they were fighting off Russian forces in several other areas, and claimed that 4,300 Russian troops had been killed.
In Kyiv, many residents spent another night in shelters or cellars as Ukrainian forces said they were fighting off Russian “sabotage groups”.
But Sunday was relatively calm compared to the first days of fighting and the city was under a blanket curfew until Monday morning. Ukraine has called on its own civilians to fight Russia, with a brewery in Lviv in the country’s west switching its production line from beers to bombs, making Molotov cocktails for the volunteer fighters.
