Following his country’s Eurovision victory, an emotional Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has promised to eventually host the Eurovision Song Contest in the city that is in turmoil, Mariupol in, Ukraine, which is entirely under Russian control, except the dedicated group of a handful of Ukrainian combatants who stand up in a steel mill.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) After the country’s Eurovision victory, a determined Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a promise early Sunday morning to host the Eurovision Song Contest in the city that is in turmoil, Mariupol in Ukraine, which is wholly located in Russian control, except an unwavering group of couple hundred Ukrainian militants who fight in a steel mill.
The Ukrainian Kalush Orchestra won the popularity contest with the tune “Stefania,” which has become a favorite anthem of Ukrainians during the war and the win helped boost morale.
“Our courage impresses the world; our music conquers Europe,” Zelenskyy posted on Facebook. “Next year, Ukraine will host Eurovision!”
The band made a passionate appeal to support the fighters at the Azovstal steel plant in the port city. Zelenskyy stated that “one day” the contest will be staged “in a Ukrainian Mariupol.”
The president’s hopeful remarks come as Russian forces are withdrawing from Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, following bombardment for weeks. Meanwhile, Russia’s forces are still fighting for the country’s industrial core.
The military of Ukraine said the Russian forces are now retreated from the city’s northeastern part to concentrate on securing supply routes. They are also using mortars, artillery and airstrikes across the eastern part of Donetsk to “deplete Ukrainian forces and destroy fortifications.”
Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov declared that Ukraine is “entering a new — long-term — phase of the war.”
Russian forces are in control of an area that is shaped like a horseshoe in the Ukrainian regions that include Donetsk and Luhansk Luhansk, which comprise part of the east Donbas region, which is located along the frontier of the industrial zone where Ukraine has been fighting separatists from Moscow since the year 2014.
In the southern part of Donbas in the Donbassudan region, in the Donbas’s southern region, the Azov Sea Port of Mariupol is currently under Russian control, except for the handful of troops that remain in the steel mill.
A convoy comprising between 500 and 1,000 vehicles carrying civilians out of the city was said to enter the Ukrainian-controlled city in Zaporizhzhia on Saturday. Ukrainian Vice-Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk told reporters that authorities were discussing the removal of 60 injured soldiers from the steelworks.
After failing to take Kyiv after February. 24 military incursion, Russian President Vladimir Putin has turned his attention eastward towards the Donbas and aims to surround Ukraine’s most skilled and well-equipped troops and then take over the territory still under Ukraine’s control.
Artillery barrages and airstrikes risk journalists moving toward the East, limiting efforts to gather a complete view of the conflict. It’s an ongoing battle without any significant breakthroughs from either side.
Russia has seized a few Donbas towns and villages like Rubizhne, which was home to a population before the war of about 55,000.
Zelenskyy claimed that Ukraine’s troops are also progressing towards the eastern part of Ukraine, taking six villages or towns in the last 24 hours. In his speech at night on Saturday, the president stated that “the situation in Donbas remains complicated” and that Russian forces had been “still trying to come out at least somewhat victorious.”
“Step by step,” Zelenskyy stated, “we are forcing the occupants to leave the Ukrainian land.”
Kharkiv, located close to the Russian border and is only 80 km (50 miles) southwest of the Russian city of Belgorod, was the subject of several weeks of intense shelling. The predominantly Russian-speaking city, with an estimated population before the war of 1.4 million, was considered a primary military goal during the war, during the time Moscow was hoping to take and hold large cities.
According to Kharkiv, Ukraine “appears to have won the Battle of Kharkiv,” Kharkiv “appears to have won,” said the Institute for the Study of War, a think tank. “Ukrainian forces prevented Russian troops from encircling, seizing Kharkiv, and then expelled them from around the city, as they did to Russian forces attempting to seize Kyiv.”
Regional Gov. Oleh Sinegubov said that there were no shelling attacks against Kharkiv within the last 24 hours via the Telegram messaging application.
He also said that Ukraine had launched a counteroffensive in the vicinity of Izyum, a city that lies 125 km (78 miles) south of Kharkiv that has been occupied by Russia from at least the start of April.
The fighting was raging at the Siversky Donets River near the city of Severodonetsk in Ukraine, which Ukraine had launched counter-attacks but was unable to stop the Russian advance, according to Oleh Zhdanov, an independent Ukrainian military analyst.
“The fate of a large portion of the Ukrainian army is being decided — there are about 40,000 Ukrainian soldiers,” said the official.
But, Russian forces suffered heavy losses during a Ukrainian attack, which damaged a bridge they tried to cross the waterway in Bilohorivka, Ukrainian and British officials claimed.
The British defence ministry has said that Russia was able to lose “significant armoured maneuver elements” of at most one battalion’s tactical group during the attack. A Russian battalion’s tactical unit consists of approximately 1,000 troops.
The ministry stated that the risky river crossing indicated “the pressure the Russian commanders are under to make progress in their operations in eastern Ukraine.”
Putin has justifications for the conflict in Ukraine in the belief that it was a reaction to NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe.
But the war has many nations on the Russian flank concerned that they may be next, and this week, the president and the prime minister of Finland declared that they are in favour of NATO membership. Officials from Sweden are likely to announce their decision on Sunday regarding whether they will apply for membership in the Western alliance for the military.
In a telephone call on the weekend Saturday, Putin spoke to Finnish President Sauli Niinisto. There were no threats to the security of Finland, and the possibility of joining NATO is it was an “error” and “negatively affected Russian-Finnish relations.”
On Friday, the Nordic nations’ possible candidatures were put in doubt when Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared that Turkey does not “not of a favourable opinion.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was scheduled to meet with his NATO counterparts this week in Germany, including the Turkish foreign minister.
