AFP

Ukrainian troops suffered setbacks after retaking parts of flashpoint eastern city Severodonetsk, where President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday warned his forces were outnumbered by a “stronger” Russian side.

“We’re holding out” in the key city but “there are more of them and they are stronger,” Zelensky told journalists in Kyiv, adding that Severodonetsk and neighbouring Lysychansk were both “dead cities now”.

With fighting raging in and around Severodonetsk, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov blasted European countries for blocking his plane from travelling to Serbia.

Lavrov repeated Moscow’s threat of retaliation if the West supplied more long-range weapons to Ukraine as promised, while Zelensky warned that the blockade on the country’s grain stocks could get worse.

With Russia bringing the weight of its artillery to bear around Severodonetsk — the largest city in the Lugansk region not under Russian control — more help was promised from abroad.

The United Kingdom said it would follow the United States and send long-range missile systems to Ukraine, defying Russian warnings against supplying them to Kyiv.

Thousands of civilians have been killed and millions forced to flee their homes since President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops into Ukraine on February 24.

Fighting since April has been concentrated in the east of the country, where Russian forces have made slow but steady advances after being beaten back from other parts of Ukraine, including the capital Kyiv.

– ‘It’s a horror show’ –

Artillery strikes have intensified on Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, where pensioner Oleksandr Lyakhovets said he had just enough time to save his cat before flames engulfed his flat after it was hit by a Russian missile.

“They shoot here endlessly… It’s a horror show,” the 67-year-old told AFP.

Lysychansk was among the areas visited Sunday by President Volodymyr Zelensky, who “got himself acquainted with the operational situation on the front line of defence”, the presidency said.

Lavrov on Monday hit out at European countries that prevented his plane passing through their airspace, forcing him to cancel a visit to ally Belgrade.

“The unthinkable has happened… This was a deprivation of a sovereign state of the right to carry out foreign policy,” Lavrov told journalists in Moscow.

Lavrov had been due to hold talks with top officials in Belgrade, one of Moscow’s few remaining allies in Europe since the launch of its military offensive in Ukraine.

Serbian daily Vecernje Novosti reported that NATO-members Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Montenegro had refused access to their airspace.

While Serbia has condemned Russia’s military action in Ukraine, it has not joined the European Union in imposing sanctions in Moscow, despite its bid to join the bloc.

– UK pledges missiles –

The United States last week said it would supply Ukraine with advanced missile systems, the latest in a long list of weaponry sent or pledged to the pro-Western country.

Lavrov told journalists Monday: “The more long-range weapons you supply, the further we will push away from our territory” the line of Ukrainian forces.

Putin had already warned the West against supplying such weapons.

The UK defence ministry said London had coordinated closely with Washington over its gift of the multiple-launch rocket systems, known as MLRS.

The M270 launchers, which can strike targets up to 80 kilometres (50 miles) away with precision-guided rockets, will “offer a significant boost in capability for the Ukrainian forces”, the ministry added.

Western powers have imposed increasingly stringent sanctions on Russia but divisions have emerged on how to act, particularly on whether to engage in dialogue with Russia.

– Resort deaths –

Russian forces continued their offensive on several other fronts in the east of Ukraine, with Kyiv saying it had repulsed seven attacks around Donetsk and Lugansk.

The Russian defence ministry said its aircraft had hit three arms depots and a fuel storage facility near the village of Kodema, in the Donetsk region.

The situation in Kherson region in the south is “critical”, Kyiv said, given the absence of “mobile and internet networks, food supplies, medicine and cash.”

Three civilians were killed in Black Sea resort Lazurne, where Russians have mined the coast, the authorities said.

Renewed Russian long-range missile strikes in the northeastern Kharkiv region hit what Moscow said was a factory for repairing armoured vehicles near Lozova.

At least 10 civilians have been killed in the region in 24 hours, Kyiv said.

“The enemy is stepping up” attacks on infrastructure including roads and “creating railway pontoon bridges across rivers” around Kharkiv, the Ukrainian defence ministry said.

Russian troops now occupy a fifth of Ukraine’s territory, according to Kyiv, and Moscow has imposed a blockade on its Black Sea ports, sparking fears of a global food crisis.

Zelensky warned Monday the volume of grain his country is unable to export because of a Russian blockade could at least triple by the autumn.

“Right now we have about 20-25 million tonnes blocked. In the autumn that could be 70-75 million tonnes,” said Zelensky, whose country was the world’s fourth biggest grain exporter before the war.

The Ukrainian army said meanwhile that it had pushed the Russian fleet back more than a hundred kilometres from Ukraine’s southwestern Black Sea coast, where Moscow’s ships have been carrying out a naval blockade for weeks.

According to the ministry, Russian forces had to deploy coastal defence missile systems in Crimea and in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region which they now occupy. 

“We have deprived the Russian fleet of total control over the northwestern part of the Black Sea, which has become a ‘grey zone’,” the ministry said, adding Moscow was currently trying to regain control there.

Russian ships nevertheless continue “to block civil navigation” in this area, according to the same source. 

US President Joe Biden on Monday will suspend tariffs for two years on solar panel imports from four countries and invoke a key power to compel domestic manufacture of clean energy technology, the White House said.

The moves are aimed at boosting renewable capacity and combating climate change, a priority for the president whose green ambitions have met with mixed success.

“Today’s clean energy technologies are a critical part of the arsenal we must harness to lower energy costs for families, reduce risks to our power grid, and tackle the urgent crisis of a changing climate,” the White House said in a fact sheet.

It added that, compared to when Biden took office, the United States was on track to triple domestic solar manufacturing capacity by 2024, from 7.5 gigawatts to 22.5 gigawatts, enough to enable 3.3 million homes to switch to solar each year.

Duties will be lifted on certain solar parts from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam — but not China — as a “bridge” to ensure the United States has access to sufficient parts to meet electricity needs while domestic capacity scales up.

China is excluded as the Commerce Department investigates whether some Chinese companies are circumventing US customs duties by assembling parts in the four countries.

At the same time, Biden’s administration will invoke the Defense Production Act (DPA) to accelerate production, and use the federal government’s purchasing power to increase demand.

Solar panel parts, building insulation and efficient heat pumps are all targeted under the DPA.

Former president Donald Trump used the same powers during the Covid pandemic to increase production of medicines and equipment, and it was also invoked during World War II.

Most recently, Biden used the act to help baby formula makers to overcome a production shortfall.

The administration will also look to permit more clean energy projects on public lands, including both solar and wind.

“The fact is with a stronger clean energy arsenal, the United States can also be a stronger power partner to our allies all around the world, especially in the face of Putin’s war in Ukraine,” a senior administration official told reporters.

“The stakes are high and the president is taking action.”

Biden has succeeded in getting Congress to pass a bipartisan infrastructure law, a pillar in his climate policy, but has failed to pass a second proposed law, the Build Back Better act.

At the same time he has been criticized by environmental groups for plans to resume oil and gas drilling on public lands, reneging on a campaign promise.

Negotiators from almost 200 countries met in Germany Monday for climate talks tasked with reigniting momentum on tackling global warming, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine overshadows the threat from rising emissions.

The conference will set the stage for a fresh round of major United Nations talks later this year in Egypt.

It will also be a chance to test the resolve of nations facing a catalogue of crises, including escalating climate impacts, geopolitical tensions, bloodshed in Ukraine and the threat of a devastating global food crisis.

Issuing a call for international unity to hold firm, outgoing UN climate change chief Patricia Espinosa told delegates it was “not acceptable to say that we are in challenging times”.

“We must understand that climate change is moving exponentially. We can no longer afford to make just incremental progress,” she said at the opening of the June 6 to 16 meeting. 

“We must move these negotiations along more quickly. The world expects it.” 

Governments have already accepted that climate change is a grave threat to humanity and the planet, and have advocated immediate action to cut fossil fuel emissions and prepare for the accelerating impacts of warming.

The summary to this year’s landmark climate report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that any further delay in action “will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all”.

But as things are going, the world is unlikely to be able to meet the Paris climate deal’s commitment to limit warming “well below” 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

“There is this disconnect between the scientific evidence of global crisis in the making, of potentially rushing towards unmanageable climate impact, versus the lack of action,” Johan Rockstrom, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, told AFP.

“This is a deep worry.”

The world has warmed nearly 1.2C so far — enough to usher in a crescendo of deadly heatwaves, floods and storm surges made worse by rising seas.

– Funding focus –

While the conference in the German city of Bonn is largely aimed at preparing for the UN COP27 meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh in November, there are a number of key issues up for debate.

That includes a push for countries to speed up their timetable for updating their carbon-cutting plans, to more quickly align actions on reducing emissions with the agreed goals for limiting global warming. 

A particular focus will also be funding from rich polluters to help vulnerable developing nations least responsible for global heating.

A promise of $100 billion a year from 2020 to help them adapt to a warming world has still not been met.

Meanwhile, there are growing calls for “loss and damage” funding for countries already struck by devastating climate impacts, with a specific dialogue on the subject slated for this week. 

The Alliance of Small Island States has warned that the Bonn conference must not be “just another talk shop”, calling for a “clear view” on when and how this financing will be put in place.

– ‘Fragile’ world –

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres last week warned that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine risked slowing action to combat the climate crisis.

“But I think this war has demonstrated one thing: how fragile the world is in its dependence to fossil fuels,” he added.

The invasion has prompted countries, particularly in Europe, to scramble to shore up energy supplies. It has also caused wheat and fertiliser prices to soar.

Fears of a food crisis have intensified in recent weeks, with India moving to ban wheat exports after the hottest March and April on record — blamed largely on climate change — hit harvests.

One opportunity for exhibiting political will comes on Wednesday when the European Parliament votes several hotly debated planks of the bloc’s sprawling “Fit for 55” climate plan.

EU member states have set themselves the target of reducing their greenhouse gas emissions by 55 percent by 2030 compared to 1990, and achieving carbon neutrality for the continent by 2050.

In May, an analysis from non-profit groups found that countries in the G20 group of major economies have yet to strengthen greenhouse gas reduction goals, despite agreeing to revisit their plans.

Last year in Glasgow, countries made new pledges to slash methane emissions, stop deforestation and other measures that — in addition to existing national carbon-cutting pledges — could theoretically cap warming under 2C, said Rockstrom. 

But that means the focus at this year’s meetings needs to be on “accountability”, he added. 

“We are now in the delivery phase”.