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The battle for the Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk is brutal and will determine the fate of the Donbas region, said President Volodymyr Zelensky, as Russian troops lay waste to the city in an assault aimed at controlling eastern Ukraine. Follow FRANCE 24’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine. All times are Paris time (GMT+2).
06:18am: Ukrainian farmers fear grain could go to waste as exports blocked
If the war in Ukraine threatens a global food crisis, it is not so much for a lack of grain as an inability to export it. In the Dnipro region, the silos are full, the cubic meter price for agricultural warehouse storage has reached exorbitant rates and farmers no longer know where to store the harvest they were about to sell abroad when the war broke out. FRANCE 24’s Jean-Emile Jammine reports:
03:55am: ‘Fate of Donbas’ being decided in Severodonetsk, Zelensky says
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called Severodonetsk the “epicenter” of the battle for the Donbas.
“This is a very fierce battle, very hard, perhaps one of the most difficult of the entire war,” he said in his nightly video address, which was recorded in the street outside his office in Kyiv.
He said the Ukrainian army is defending its positions and inflicting real losses on the Russian forces.
“In many ways, it is there that the fate of our Donbas is being decided,” Zelensky said.
Luhansk Gov. Serhiy Haidai acknowledged the difficulties of battling Russian forces, saying, “Maybe we will have to retreat, but right now battles are ongoing in the city.”
“Everything the Russian army has — artillery, mortars, tanks, aviation — all of that, they’re using in Severodonetsk in order to wipe the city off the face of the Earth and capture it completely,” he said.
2:40am: Millions hurt as Ukraine war hikes prices, UN says
A UN report says the war in Ukraine is increasing the suffering of millions of people by escalating food and energy prices, coming on top of ills from a growing financial crisis, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and climate change.
The report by the UN Global Crisis Response Group released Wednesday says the war “has exacerbated a global cost-of-living crisis unseen in at least a generation” and is undermining the UN goal of ending extreme poverty around the world by 2030.
The group was appointed by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to assess the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24.
Guterres says the report makes clear that “the war’s impact on food security, energy and finance is systemic, severe and speeding up.”
12:29am: Sanctions wiping out 15 years of economic gains in Russia, report finds
Sanctions imposed on Moscow over the invasion of Ukraine are rolling back more than a decade of economic progress and three decades of integration with the West, according to an analysis Wednesday.
But economists at the Institute for International Finance caution that the impact is a “moving target” since more sanctions are being added, and Russia could retaliate, notably on energy.
The damage will make it more costly for Russian president Vladimir Putin to continue the war, but sanctions do not work like “flipping a switch,” IIF economist Elina Ribakova told reporters.
In its latest analysis, IIF forecasts Russia’s economy will contract by 15 percent this year and another three percent in 2023.
The “economic warfare” is “unraveling its economy,” and the report authors note that “some of the most meaningful consequences have yet to be felt.”
IIF Executive Vice President Clay Lowery said gauging whether the penalties imposed on Russia are effective depends on what governments are trying to achieve.
“If success is damaging the economy… then it’s definitely some impact,” and that is likely to increase, he told reporters.
But sanctions do not have “a great track record” of driving big policy shifts, he said.
(FRANCE24 with REUTERS, AP and AFP)
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