KYIV, June 07(ABC): Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Monday that his troops were outnumbered by a “stronger” Russian side, as the two countries forces battled for control of the eastern city of Severodonetsk.
“We re holding out” in the key city, but “there are more of them and they are stronger,” Zelensky told journalists in Kyiv, one day after a daring visit to frontline positions in Lysychansk, which sits across the Siverskyi Donets river from Severodonetsk.
Moscow, meanwhile, lashed out over European countries denying overflight rights to the aircraft of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Russia expanded its list of American officials banned from entering the country, while Washington placed a seizure order on two aircraft owned by billionaire oligarch Roman Abramovich, raising the stakes for business people in Russian President Vladimir Putin s circle.
Zelensky, along with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, also warned Monday of tightening supplies of grain on the global market due to what Blinken said was a Russian strategy of “blackmail”.
“There is somewhere around 20 million tonnes of wheat that is trapped in silos near Odessa, and in ships literally filled with grain that are stuck in the Odessa port because of this Russian blockade,” said Blinken.
– Heavy shelling –
Rhetoric has spiked on both sides of the war, now in its fourth month, as Britain followed the United States in announcing it would supply longer-range, mobile missile launchers to Ukraine s forces, which could improve Kyiv s fight against Russian firepower.
The British Defense Ministry said it would be supplying track-mounted M270 multiple rocket artillery units, which can strike targets up to 80 kilometres (50 miles) away with precision-guided rockets, double what more standard battlefield artillery can reach.
