Ukraine’s allies look to help country weather winter challenge at aid conference

Russia and Ukraine pounded each other’s forces in heavy fighting in the eastern region of Donetsk on Tuesday as Kyiv’s allies met in Paris to provide urgent aid to help Ukrainians survive freezing winter temperatures.

Moscow is battling to take full control of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, two of four territories the Kremlin claims to have annexed in votes rejected by most countries as illegal.

Moscow is also attacking Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with waves of missile and drone strikes, at times cutting off electricity for millions of civilians enduring Europe’s deadliest conflict since the Second World War.

“They’re shelling really hard, there’s shelling, especially at night,” Valentyna, 70, told Reuters as she fled the Ukrainian-held city of Bakhmut, which Moscow seeks to capture but which is now largely in ruins because of incessant bombardment.

Valentyna, who declined to give her surname, spoke in a van driving to the relative safety of Ukrainian-controlled Pokrovsk.

“The house would shake and every minute, second you expect it could crumble around you and that’d be it. I couldn’t even sleep in the last week, so I decided to leave,” she said.

Denis Pushilin, the Russian-installed administrator of the portion controlled by Moscow, told Russian media that just over half of the Donetsk People’s Republic had been “liberated.” The self-styled republic is a breakaway Russian-backed entity that has been fighting Ukrainian forces since 2014.

Reuters was unable to independently verify the report.

Russian artillery attacks continue

Fierce fighting in the region in recent weeks has left unclear which parts of Donetsk are under Russian and Ukrainian control.

Three civilians were killed in the Donetsk region over past 24 hours, regional Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said on his Telegram channel, while in the southern Kherson region, regional Gov. Yaroslav Yanushevych reported three people were killed and 15 wounded in Russian artillery attacks in the past day.

Russian troops shelled the part of the Kherson region under Ukrainian control 57 times, he said.

Reuters could not independently verify the latest battlefield accounts.

Belarus, a close ally of Russia, launched a snap inspection of its troops’ combat readiness after an order from President Alexander Lukashenko, the Defence Ministry said on Tuesday.

It was the latest in a flurry of military actions, including a counterterrorism exercise last week, that have raised fears Russia may mount an attack on Ukraine from Belarusian territory in coming months.

Dozens of countries meet in Paris

Meanwhile, in Paris, about 70 countries and institutions will discuss what can be offered between now and March to maintain Ukraine’s water, food, energy, health and transport. Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s deputy prime minister, is among those attending.

A second meeting between France, Ukraine and some 500 companies will see what can be invested and done in the short to long term.

A French diplomat told reporters in a briefing ahead of the meeting that the immediate priority was to ensure the electricity network did not collapse and that water pipes did not freeze.

As he arrived at the meeting, French President Emmanuel Macron said there was an agreement on removing heavy weapons from Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and that talks were underway on the modalities around this.

The G7 on Monday promised to “meet Ukraine’s urgent requirements” after Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy appealed for modern tanks, artillery and long-range weapons. Zelenskyy also urged G7 leaders at a virtual meeting to support his idea of convening a special Global Peace Summit to bring peace to his country.

The summit would be focused on the implementation of Kyiv’s 10-point peace plan that insists on, among other things, Russia’s withdrawal of all its troops from Ukraine and no territorial concessions on Kyiv’s part.

U.S. President Joe Biden told Zelenskyy on Sunday that Washington’s priority was to boost Ukraine’s air defences. The United States also shipped the first batch of power equipment to Ukraine under an aid package agreed upon last month.

Russia is “deliberately trying to freeze Ukrainians to death as we enter winter,” a senior U.S. official said.

Moscow denies deliberately attacking civilians, but the war has displaced millions and killed thousands of non-combatants.

Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said “unlivable conditions” were likely to send another wave of Ukrainian refugees into Europe over the winter.

WATCH | Ukraine says about 13,000 children sent to Russia this year:

The Ukrainian children being deported to Russia as war wages on

While trying to flee the war in Ukraine, Evgeny Mezhevoy was sent to a Russian prison while his three children were taken to a camp in Moscow. The kids were among close to 13,000 the Ukrainian government says have been illegally deported to Russia since the war broke out, while Russia paints itself as the saviour of forgotten orphans.

Sergey Kovalenko, the head of YASNO, which provides Kyiv with electricity, said on his Facebook page that power shortages in the capital were significant.

There are no peace talks underway to end the conflict, which Moscow describes as a “special military operation” against security threats posed by its neighbour. Ukraine and its Western allies call it an unprovoked, imperialist land grab.

The Kremlin said on Tuesday that Ukraine must take into account the “realities” that have developed in the Ukraine conflict — including Russia’s capture of territories from Ukraine — for there to be peace between the two sides.