KYIV: Pro-Kremlin authorities in Ukraine's Kherson said on Wednesday they will ask Russia to annex the region as Moscow seeks to shore up its gains in the increasingly drawn-out and bloody war.
Gas supplies to energy-starved Europe were also disrupted by a halt in Russian supplies flowing through Ukraine as the international shockwaves of the February 24 war continued.
The developments came as Ukraine said it was pushing Russian troops away from the country's second city Kharkiv in the northeast but facing stiff resistance from the attacking forces.
Russia has focused on eastern and southern Ukraine since it failed to take Kyiv in the first weeks after the February 24 war, and US intelligence has warned Putin is ready for a long war.
Kherson, the first major Ukrainian city to fall after the Russian attack of its pro-Western neighbour, is north of Crimea, which itself was annexed by Moscow in 2014 after an internationally-condemned vote.
Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of Kherson's Moscow-installed civilian and military administration, said there would be a "request to make Kherson region a full subject of the Russian Federation."
Stremousov suggested the authorities would appeal directly to Putin without putting the move to a vote. But the Kremlin replied that it was up to the residents of Kherson to "determine their own fate".
Kherson is just north of Crimea and essential for its water supplies. But Russia also appears set on creating a land bridge to Crimea from its own territory, with US intelligence suggesting it wants to go all the way across the southern coast to Moldova.
On the battlefield, Ukraine's forces were boosted by what Kyiv says is the recapture of four villages around Kharkiv
President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address on Tuesday that he had "good news" from Kharkiv and praised the "superhuman strength" of Ukrainian defenders.
Ukraine's general staff of the armed forces said on Wednesday that "occupiers continue to focus their efforts on preventing the further advance of our troops towards the state border of Ukraine" from Kharkiv.
But Ukraine is engaged in what appears to be an increasingly desperate effort to hold the Russian-speaking Donbas region in the east.
"They come in waves," volunteer fighter Mykola said of the Russians' repeated attempts to push south past a strategic river near a rural settlement called Bilogorivka.
Meanwhile, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Argentine President Alberto Fernández on Wednesday warned of the global consequences of the war in Ukraine, particularly in relation to food supply.
"It is a war that has consequences for the whole world," Scholz said during a joint press conference with Fernández in Berlin, pointing to rising energy prices and the risk of disruption to the global food chain.
There was a possibility that countries such as Ukraine, which play an important role in global food security, will no longer be able to meet demand, Scholz added. "Latin America is suffering the consequences of the war," Fernández said. "The sanctions against Russia have consequences not only in Russia,
Nearby, the casing of a cluster munition stood upright like a fence pole not far from a team of Ukrainian medics rushing a bleeding soldier from the eastern front.
One of the doctors reassured the wincing fighter that the tourniquet being squeezed just above his knee did not mean he was about to lose a part of his leg.
US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines on Tuesday said Putin was "preparing for prolonged conflict" and "still intends to achieve goals beyond the Donbas."
The war in Ukraine has also fuelled Europe's growing energy crisis, with Kyiv pressing for an embargo on oil and gas imports from Russia.
Ukraine on Wednesday said Russia had halted gas supplies through a key transit hub in the east of the country, a day after the Ukrainian state energy company Naftogaz said it was no longer responsible for gas coming through Russian-occupied territory. - AFP
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
