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Fierce battles raged in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday, with Russian troops on the verge of encircling a key industrial city, as President Volodymyr Zelensky issued a bitter rebuke of the West for not doing enough to help Kyiv win the war.

Lugansk regional governor Sergiy Gaiday described fighting outside of the industrial city of Severodonetsk, a key military goal for Russia, as “very difficult,” saying Russian troops were shelling the city from the outskirts with mortars.

“The coming week will be decisive,” Gaiday said in a video posted on Telegram, adding he believes Russia’s goal is to “capture the Lugansk region no matter what cost”.

“There is a colossal amount of shelling,” he added. 

Earlier in the day, addressing the World Economic Forum in Davos, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry Dmytro Kuleba compared the battle for Donbass to the epic battles fought in World War II and said his country “badly” needs multiple launch rocket systems to match Russian firepower.

In Kyiv, Zelensky echoed that plea.

“We need the help of our partners — above all, weapons for Ukraine. Full help, without exceptions, without limits, enough to win,” Zelensky said in his daily address to the nation.

And he called out the international community for paying too much attention to Russia’s interests and too little to Ukraine’s.

The Ukrainian president blasted a recent New York Times editorial and other similar statements by influential Western figures suggesting that Ukraine might have to sacrifice some territory to end the conflict.

“We must do everything in our power so that the world develops a firm habit to take Ukraine into consideration, so that the interests of Ukrainians don’t get overtaken by the interests of those rushing to yet another meeting with the dictator,” Zelensky said.

– ‘Clear blackmail’ –

Russia’s February 24 invasion of its pro-Western neighbour has caused global shockwaves, with the latest being fears of food shortages, particularly in Africa.

Moscow blamed the international sanctions imposed after the invasion, while the West says the shortage is mainly down to Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian ports.

“Solving the food problem requires a comprehensive approach, including the removal of sanctions that have been imposed on Russian exports and financial transactions,” said Russian deputy foreign minister Andrey Rudenko.

But Kuleba urged the West not to give in.

“This is clear blackmail. You could not find a better example of blackmail in international relations,” Kuleba said in Davos.

Kuleba also slammed the western military alliance NATO for “doing literally nothing” to stop Russia.

– ‘Extremely heavy shelling’ –

Moscow’s army has plotted a slow but steady course deeper into Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region since withdrawing forces from central and northern regions.

In the eastern town of Soledar, Ukraine’s salt manufacturing hub, the ground shook moments after Natalia Timofeyenko climbed out of her bunker.

“I go outside just to see people. I know that there is shelling out there but I go,” the 47-year-old said after a thundering blast smashed apart a chunk of a salt mine where she worked with most of her friends and neighbours.

Ghostly frontline towns like Soledar are being hammered by Russian artillery as they sit along the crucial road that leads out of besieged Severodonetsk and its sister city Lysychansk.

Twelve people were killed by “extremely heavy shelling and attacks” in the neighbouring region of Donetsk, which also forms part of Donbas, the Ukrainian presidency said.

In a sign that the rest of the country remains at risk, Russian cruise missiles struck the major southern rail hub of Zaporizhzhia, killing one person and damaging dozens of houses, the presidency added.

– ‘It is just war’ –

Russia also sought to tighten its grip over the parts of southern Ukraine that it occupies.

President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday signed a decree simplifying a procedure to obtain a Russian passport for residents of the southern Ukrainian regions of Kherson, under the full control of Russian troops, and partly-occupied Zaporizhzhia.

Kyiv said the plan was a “flagrant violation” of Ukraine’s sovereignty.

Moscow-backed officials are pushing for formal annexation by Russia.

“People are very apprehensive,” Kherson trolleybus driver Alexander Loginov, 47, told AFP from the cabin of his vehicle, during a press trip organised by the Russian defence ministry. 

Day-to-day life remains marked by uncertainty, especially over payment of salaries as “Ukrainian banks are closing,” he said. “To be honest, it is just war.”

Underlining the human cost, about 200 bodies were found in the basement of a destroyed building of the port city of Mariupol, which fell to Moscow recently after a devastating siege, Ukrainian authorities said.

“It is impossible to be within the area due to the corpse smell,” Ukrainian ombudswoman Lyudmyla Denisova wrote on Telegram Wednesday. “The occupiers turned the entire Mariupol into a cemetery.”

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Aida Hernandez shed bitter tears as she left mass at the Sacred Heart church in the Texas town of Uvalde, a simple gray building where dozens gathered Wednesday to mourn the 21 lives lost in a horrific school shooting.

In the small church off main street, the largely Hispanic congregation sought to process the “horror” of what happened, and pray for the victims of America’s worst school shooting in a decade.

“My experience was of horror and pain. I knew the victims. I’m still in shock,” said Hernandez, in her sixties, who taught at Robb Elementary School until she retired two years ago.

The town of just 15,000 inhabitants, located 50 miles (80 kilometers) from the border with Mexico, was until 24 hours ago like every other small US town: a grid of streets dotted with shopping malls, gas stations and fast food chains.

But on Tuesday everything changed, when an 18-year-old named Salvador Ramos sowed carnage at Robb Elementary School.

Armed with an assault rifle, he made his way to two adjoining classrooms and opened fire, killing two teachers and 19 of their young students — until he was shot dead by police. 

The massacre shook the quiet town to its core and plunged residents into both incomprehension and despair.

“When you teach and you’re in the classroom, that’s your job to protect them,” Hernandez said of the teachers who died.

“They did more beyond what they were supposed to do.” 

– ‘Too many times’ –

A few feet away, Rosie Buantel was equally grief-stricken — but she was outraged, too.

“I’m sad and I’m angry at our government, for not doing more about gun control,” the woman in her fifties told AFP.

“We’ve gone through this one too many times. And still there’s nothing done. They’re still debating.”

Eddie, a local resident in his sixties who declined to give his last name, was also feeling angry.

“I came to show my respects and also to put pressure for a change of laws so guns don’t get in the hands of children,” he said after laying flowers near the elementary school, which was still surrounded by police.

Throughout the day, people in Uvalde made their way to a municipal center, where they could receive psychological support.

On the day of the shooting, many relatives and friends of the victims faced hours of anguished waiting to find out what happened to their loved ones.

In front of the municipal center, in the blazing midday Texas heat, groups of adults and children chatted, coming and going under the watchful gaze of police officers.

Volunteer psychologist Iveth Pacheco traveled from San Antonio, to the east of Uvalde, to provide support to those in need.

“It’s just one of those situations where you just have to be present,” she said. “We have to be ready for the child whatever questions they have, and it’s the same thing with the adults right now.”

Boeing’s Starliner capsule headed back to Earth Wednesday in the final step of a key test flight to prove itself worthy of providing rides for NASA astronauts to the International Space Station.

The spaceship autonomously undocked at 2:36 pm Eastern time (1836 GMT) and was set to touch down in New Mexico just over four hours later, at 2249 GMT, wrapping up a six-day mission crucial to restoring Boeing’s reputation after past failures.

“#Starliner separation confirmed,” tweeted Boeing Space.

Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2) is the last hurdle for Starliner to clear before it carries humans in another test flight that could take place by the end of this year.

Starliner docked with the ISS on Friday, a day after blasting off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Over the weekend, astronauts living aboard the research platform opened the hatch and “greeted” the capsule’s passengers: Rosie the Rocketeer, a sensor-equipped mannequin, and a plush toy named Jebediah Kerman, a video game character and the ship’s zero-g indicator.

The mission hasn’t been without its hiccups.

Two thrusters responsible for placing Starliner in a stable orbit failed, though officials insisted there was plenty of redundancy built into the system to overcome the problem.

On the day of docking, the vessel missed its scheduled contact time by more than an hour, after a ring responsible for latching on to the station failed to deploy correctly. Engineers had to retract the ring and pop it out again before it worked the second time.

– Second taxi service –

Still, the glitches are minor compared to the troubles Starliner saw during its first test launch, back in 2019, when one software bug caused it to burn too much fuel to reach its destination, and another almost meant that the vehicle was destroyed during re-entry.

The second error was caught in time to upload a patch, and the vessel was able to achieve a gentle landing, slowed by its enormous parachutes, at White Sands Space Harbor — the same spaceport where the space shuttle Columbia once landed, and where Starliner is once more expected for touchdown.

The spacecraft will bring back more than 600 pounds (270 kilograms) of cargo, including reusable tanks that provide breathable air to station crew members, which will be refurbished and taken back up on a future flight.

Boeing and NASA also tried to launch Starliner in August 2021, but the capsule was rolled back from the launchpad to address sticky valves that did not open as they should, and the ship was eventually sent back to the factory for fixes.

NASA is looking to certify Starliner as a second “taxi” service for its astronauts to the space station — a role that Elon Musk’s SpaceX has provided since succeeding in a test mission for its Dragon capsule in 2020.

Both companies were awarded fixed-price contracts — $4.2 billion to Boeing and $2.6 billion to SpaceX — in 2014, shortly after the end of the space shuttle program, during a time when the United States was left reliant on Russian Soyuz rockets for rides to the orbital outpost.

For nearly a decade, America’s satirical “The Onion” publication has run a headline that’s come to epitomize the futility many people feel in the wake of yet another US gun massacre.

“‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens” reads the title, which the outlet published on Wednesday for the 21st time since 2014.

The headline routinely makes the social media rounds after mass shootings, as flags are lowered to half-staff, moments of silence are held and US lawmakers offer words of condolence, perhaps even anger or tears — but ultimately little else.

The Onion article was also run earlier this month, after a racist shooting at a grocery store in upstate New York. Less than two weeks later, a teenage gunman on Tuesday shot dead 19 primary schoolchildren and two teachers in Texas.

It echoed the school massacres that came before it: Columbine, Sandy Hook, Parkside.

The attacks remain open wounds on the American psyche but have resulted in little to no legal changes. In many places across the nation, gun ownership today is easier than ever.

The inertia in the face of cyclical violence stands in stark contrast to responses elsewhere in the world.

Hours after the Texas attack New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, appeared on the US program “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and drove home just how uniquely American the problem is.

In 2019 a white supremacist gunman opened fire at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, murdering 51 people and injuring dozens more.

Less than a month later, the country outlawed almost all semi-automatic weapons and assault rifles.

“I could not fathom how weapons that could cause such destruction and large-scale death could have been obtained legally in this country,” Ardern said at the time.

Speaking Tuesday, she explained that New Zealanders are “a very pragmatic people.”

“When we saw something like that happen, everyone said never again,” she said. “So then it was incumbent on us as politicians to respond to that.”

– ‘Carnage’ –

Ardern also invalidated fears that gun control would have an adverse impact on activities like hunting.

“We have legitimate needs for guns in our country, for things like pest control and to protect our biodiversity,” she told Colbert. “But you don’t need a military-style semi-automatic to do that.”

“And so we got rid of them.”

Australian economy ministry Jim Chalmers summed up a large part of the global reaction to the Texas attack, saying “it is hard to imagine that a great country like the United States can go on like this, with this gun violence, these mass atrocities.”

US rival China also spoke out, with foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin accusing Washington of failing to tackle gun violence, as well as racism.

“The US government has not been seen to do anything substantive to address these problems in the past decades,” he said.

The American distinction isn’t lost on politicians including President Joe Biden, who in the aftermath of the latest shooting tweeted that “these kinds of mass shootings rarely happen elsewhere in the world.”

“Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen?” he pleaded.

Speaking Tuesday night he urged US lawmakers to stand up to the National Rifle Association, the country’s powerful pro-gun lobby that has given millions of dollars to primarily conservative politicians in a successful bid to keep gun laws loose.

Even incremental US legislative change — including background checks, raising the minimum firearms purchasing age, and creating a system that would empower courts to keep guns away from potentially dangerous people — faces apparently insurmountable obstacles.

“The difference between America and these other nations is not that there aren’t people with homicidal thoughts in other nations,” said Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut on MSNBC Tuesday night, after he delivered an emotional plea for gun control on the Senate floor.

“It’s that they can’t go down to their local Walmart and buy a weapon that kills 20 kids in two minutes.”