Ukraine warns of Russian strike force aimed at Zelensky’s hometown

Ukraine said Russia had started creating a military strike force aimed at President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih, while Nato moved closer to its most significant expansion in decades as the alliance responds to the invasion of Ukraine. The US Senate and the Italian parliament both approved on Wednesday Finland and Sweden’s accession to the 30-member North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato). Under Nato membership, which must be ratified by all 30 member states, an attack on one member is an attack against all. “This historic vote sends an important signal of the sustained, bipartisan US commitment to Nato, and to ensuring our Alliance is prepared to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow,” US President Joe Biden said in a statement. Russia, which invaded Ukraine on February 24, has repeatedly warned Finland and Sweden against joining Nato. Nato’s 30 allies signed the accession protocol last month, allowing them to join the US-led nuclear-armed alliance once its members ratify the decision. Ratification could take up to a year. Zelensky seeks talks with China’s Xi to help end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine Ukraine also dismissed suggestions by former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder that Russia wanted a “negotiated solution” to the war and said any dialogue would be contingent on a Russian ceasefire and withdrawal of its troops. Schroeder, a friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin and increasingly derided in Germany for his pro-Russia stance, said last month’s agreement on grain shipments from Ukraine, aimed at easing a global food crisis, might offer a way forward. In response, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak described Schroeder as a “voice of the Russian royal court” and made clear that the grain agreement would not lead to broader negotiations. “If Moscow wants dialogue, the ball is in its court. First – a ceasefire and withdrawal of troops, then – constructive (dialogue),” Podolyak wrote on Twitter. In a video address on Wednesday night, Zelensky also responded bitterly to the notion of talks with Russia. “It is simply disgusting when former leaders of major states with European values work for Russia, which is at war against these values,” Zelensky said. On the battleground, Russian forces were engaged in considerable military activity, firing from tanks, barrel and rocket artillery in several parts of Ukraine, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said on Thursday. That came as Ukrainian forces pressed on with a counteroffensive to drive out the Russians from the southern Kherson region that they seized in the first days of war, near the Kremlin-annexed peninsula of Crimea. Putin’s rumoured girlfriend hit in new round of US sanctions The Ukrainian presidency said it had “liberated” seven more villages in the southern region while 53 remained under Russian control. Ukraine also said Russia had begun creating a strike group in the Kryvyi Rih direction and that it could be preparing new offensive operations in southern Ukraine. The steel-producing city of Kryvyi Rih where Zelensky grew up lies around 50km (30 miles) from the southern front line. “It’s also quite likely that the enemy is preparing a hostile counteroffensive with the subsequent plan of getting to the administrative boundary of Kherson region,” the southern military command said. In Ukraine’s east, Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk region said on the Telegram app that three civilians had been killed in Bakhmut, Maryinka and Shevchenko and five wounded in the past 24 hours. Kyiv has launched mandatory evacuations from the Donetsk region – now bearing the brunt of Russia’s offensive – because the government does not expect to be able to provide it with heat in the cold winter months. Russian-held Ukraine nuclear plant ‘out of control’: IAEA chief Governors of the Mykolaiv, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk regions reported that their regions had been shelled overnight, and civilian infrastructure, houses had been damaged. Mayor Yevhen Yevtushenko of Nikopol, west of Zaporizhzhia in central Ukraine, said his city had been shelled. Russia in March was accused of firing shells dangerously close to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, as its forces took it over in the first weeks of the invasion. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has accused Moscow of using Ukraine’s largest nuclear power plant as a “nuclear shield” in attacks on Ukrainian forces. However, a Russian-installed official in Ukraine said that Ukrainian forces had repeatedly used Western arms to attack the plant. “We are ready to show how the Russian military is guarding the plant, and how Ukraine, which receives weapons from the West, uses those weapons including drones to attack the nuclear power plant,” said Yevgeny Balitsky, the head of the Russian-installed administration of the Zaporizhzhia region. Moscow said on Wednesday that it had also destroyed a foreign arms depot in a region near Poland that is the further removed from the war. Russia declares Ukraine Azov regiment as ‘terrorist’ group The attack coincided with a visit to Kyiv by Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau. Russia denies it targets civilians, but many towns and cities have been destroyed and thousands killed in the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II. Ukraine and its Western allies accuse Russian forces of war crimes. Putin sent troops into Ukraine in what he calls a “special military operation” to rid the country of fascists. Ukraine and the West said Putin launched an unprovoked “imperial” land grab. Nearly 6.2 million Ukrainians refugees have been forced to move across Europe and another 6.3 million have been displaced within Ukraine, according to new data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse and Tribune News Service