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Russian President Vladimir Putin must now decide his next steps in the five-month invasion he started in February.

After Russian troops captured the strategic Ukrainian city of Lysychansk on Sunday, here are five different options raised by security experts who spoke with AFP:

– Grinding advance –

Russian forces appear on course to take full control of the Donbas region that was already partly held by pro-Kremlin separatists before the February 24 invasion.

With Lysychansk and its twin city Severodonetsk captured in the past weeks, Putin’s troops “can hope to take Sloviansk and Kramatorsk and the surrounding regions,” said Pierre Grasser, a researcher at Paris’ Sorbonne university.

Sloviansk in particular is home to “a relatively welcoming population — at least those who have remained there” rather than fleeing the fighting, he added.

But there may be limits to how far the Russians can press into their neighbour’s territory.

“Their steamroller works well near their own borders, their own logistical centres and their airbases. The further away they get, the harder it is,” said Pierre Razoux, academic director of the Mediterranean Foundation for Strategic Studies (FMES).

– Control the Black Sea –

Southern Ukrainian city Kherson was one of the first to fall to Russian forces in the opening days of the war.

But Russia’s grip on the country’s Black Sea coast is not secure.

“Counter-attacks by Ukraine in the south… place Russian forces in a dilemma. Do they sustain their eastern offensive, or do they significantly reinforce the south?” said Mick Ryan, a former general in the Australian army.

The question is all the more pressing as “the war in the south is a front of greater strategic importance” than the Donbas, he added.

Claiming territory along the coast could allow Moscow to create a land bridge to the Crimean peninsula, which it annexed in 2014, while both sides want to control Ukraine’s Black Sea ports.

– Crack Kharkiv –

Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv is close to the northeastern border with Russia — and located in a pocket still controlled by Kyiv that could yet be cut off by Russian forces.

“If the Ukrainians collapse and Kharkiv is completely isolated, the Russians could force them to choose between committing to defend the city or taking the pressure off in the south towards Kherson,” said Pierre Razoux.

It will be up to President Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukrainian commanders “to deploy their units so as to prevent a big summer breakthrough” that could encircle Kharkiv, he added.

Home to 1.4 million people in peacetime, a siege of Kharkiv could be a bloody affair lasting up to a year, Razoux said.

– Divide the West –

While the West has so far kept up a mostly united front of sanctions and support for Ukraine, continued Russian advances could drive the allies’ judgements of their interests apart.

“The goal for Russia is to continue to grind down Ukrainian forces on the battlefield, while waiting for the political will to support Ukraine to fade among Western countries,” said Colin Clarke, research director at the Soufan Center think-tank in New York.

Deliveries of Western military aid have been too slow and too small to turn the battle decisively in Kiev’s favour.

Meanwhile, the war’s inflationary impact on basics like food and energy may gradually turn public opinion away from the strong initial support for Ukraine.

“The Americans could tell the Ukrainians ‘you can’t go on’,” said Alexander Grinberg, an analyst at the Jerusalem Institute for Security and Strategy.

– Open talks –

Russia itself is suffering heavy costs from Western sanctions, battlefield casualties and losses of military materiel.

“Putin will be forced to negotiate at some point, he’s bitten off more than he can chew,” said Colin Clarke.

In late June, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov already raised the option of talks — on condition of “applying all the conditions set by Russia”, which remain unacceptable to Kiev.

But his control over domestic information means the Russian leader has a free hand to tell the public that his objectives have been achieved and justify a pause in the fighting.

A bigger challenge might be divisions on the Ukrainian side.

Hardliners and military leaders would “refuse any compromise with Russia” even if Zelensky were willing to strike a deal, said Pierre Razoux.

“They could tolerate a frozen conflict, but not a defeat.”

NATO on Tuesday kicked off momentous accession procedures for Sweden and Finland, aiming to expand the military alliance to 32 countries in reaction to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“This is an historic day, for Finland, for Sweden, for NATO, and for Euro-Atlantic security,” NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said after protocols were signed launching the required ratification process in all alliance countries.

The foreign ministers of Sweden and Finland, alongside Stoltenberg, also qualified the occasion as “historic”.

“The membership of both Finland and Sweden will not only contribute to our own security, but to the collective security of the alliance,” said Finland’s Pekka Haavisto.

The two Nordic countries had long maintained non-alignment status, even though they have held exercises with NATO and have inter-operable weapons systems.

They announced intentions to join NATO in May, triggered by Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine and ongoing war there.

In a sudden change of course, Sweden and Finland — the latter of which fought a Soviet invasion in 1939-1940 and shares a 1,340-kilometre (830-mile) border with Russia — asked to come under NATO’s mutual-defence umbrella.

Their bids hit a road-bump when Turkey, a NATO member, threatened to block their entry. 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had accused Sweden and Finland of being havens for Kurdish militants he has sought to crush, and for promoting “terrorism”. 

He also demanded they lift arms embargoes imposed for Turkey’s 2019 military incursion into Syria.

But Erdogan dropped his objections last week, in time for a NATO summit in Spain, after negotiations resulted in concessions — and a US promise of new warplanes for Turkey.

The summit ended up extending invitations to Sweden and Finland to formally apply, leading to lightning-fast negotiations on Monday then Tuesday’s signing.

– Security commitments –

Erdogan says he could still slam the door shut if Sweden and Finland don’t follow through on their promises, which include possible extradition agreements.

The months-long period during which all NATO countries have to ratify the Nordic countries’ membership is a risky moment, not only because of Turkey’s threat but also because the NATO mutual-defence clause is not yet applicable.

Sweden’s Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson told reporters in her country that Stockholm figured legislative approval from NATO nations “could take a year, and that estimation rests”.

Stoltenberg said: “I count on allies to deliver a quick and swift and smooth ratification process.” 

He emphasised that “many allies have already made clear commitments to Finland and Sweden’s security” during the interim period, and pointed out a boosted NATO presence in their region.

Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde said security assurances had been made by the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland and NATO members in the Nordic and Baltic regions.

Several NATO members flagged expedited ratification for Sweden and Finland.

“Moments after Finland and Sweden’s accession protocols were signed in Brussels, I summoned my government and proposed to Estonian parliament to convene tomorrow for accelerated ratification,” Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas tweeted.

Germany’s parliament was poised to ratify as early as the end of this week. Sources in the ruling coalition said a first reading of the text was likely on Wednesday, with the final two readings on Friday.

“This is the fastest accession process in NATO’s history so far,” Stoltenberg said.

A wealthy Chicago suburb was reeling Tuesday from a devastating shooting that saw gunfire tear through a July 4 holiday crowd, as online posts and videos pointed to the troubled mind of the 21-year-old suspected gunman.

Robert “Bobby” Crimo III, who grew up in Highland Park, where the shooting occurred, was arrested on Monday after six people were killed and two dozen injured during an Independence Day parade.

Crimo was taken into custody after law enforcement launched a  massive manhunt for the gunman who sprayed paradegoers with dozens of semi-automatic rounds from a rooftop, turning the celebration into a scene of death and trauma.

“We’re all still reeling,” Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering told NBC’s Today show on Tuesday.

“Unbelievable shock,” Rotering said. “Everybody knows somebody who was affected by this directly.”

Rotering said she personally knew the suspected gunman when he was a young boy in the Cub Scouts and she was a Cub Scout leader.

“How did somebody become this angry, this hateful to then take it out on innocent people who literally were just having a family day out?” Rotering asked.

David Baum, a doctor whose two-year-old was in the parade, witnessed the shooting and helped treat some of the injured.

“The people who were gone were blown up by that gunfire,” Baum told CNN. “The horrific scene of some of the bodies is unspeakable for the average person.”

On Tuesday, police and FBI agents looking for evidence were sifting through belongings left behind by members of the crowd as they fled.

Strollers, bicycles, folding chairs and other items littered the parade route through the main street of Highland Park as American flags flapped in the breeze from brick buildings.

– Disturbing online content –

Crimo, whose father unsuccessfully ran for mayor and owns a store in Highland Park called Bob’s Pantry and Deli, was an amateur musician billing himself as “Awake the Rapper.”

The younger Crimo’s online postings include violent content that alluded to guns and shootings.

One YouTube video posted eight months ago featured cartoons of a gunman and people being shot.

A voice-over says “I need to just do it.”

It adds: “It is my destiny. Everything has led up to this. Nothing can stop me, not even myself.”

Crimo, who has the word “Awake” tattooed over an eyebrow, is seen sporting an “FBI” baseball cap in numerous photos and is wearing a Trump flag as a cape in one picture.

Rotering, the mayor, said the firearm used in the shooting was “legally obtained.”

“This nation needs to have a conversation about these weekly events involving the murder of dozens of people with legally obtained guns,” she said. “We need to re-examine the laws.”

The shooting is the latest in a wave of gun violence plaguing the United States, where approximately 40,000 deaths a year are caused by firearms, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

The deeply divisive debate over gun control was reignited by two massacres in May that saw 10 Black people gunned down at an upstate New York supermarket and 21 people, mostly young children, slain at an elementary school in Texas.

The Highland Park shooting cast a pall over Independence Day, when towns and cities across the country hold similar parades and people attend barbecues, sporting events and fireworks displays.

In another July 4 shooting, two police officers were wounded when they came under fire during a fireworks show in Philadelphia, local officials said.

– ‘Pop, pop, pop’ –

In Highland Park, Emily Prazak, who marched in the parade, described the mayhem.

“We were getting ready to march down the street and then all the sudden waves of these people started… like running towards us. And right before that happened, we heard the pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, and I thought it was fireworks,” Prazak told AFP.

Don Johnson said he initially thought it was a car backfiring.

“And finally, I heard the screams from a block down and people running and carrying their kids and everything, and we ran into the gas station, and we were in there for three hours,” Johnson told AFP.

“I’ve seen scenes like this over and over again on the TV and in different communities, and didn’t think it was going to happen here ever,” he said.

Five of the six people killed, all adults, died at the scene. The sixth was taken to the hospital but succumbed to wounds there.

Highland Park Hospital, where most of the victims were taken, said it had received 25 people with gunshot wounds aged eight to 85.

President Joe Biden voiced his shock and vowed to keep fighting “the epidemic of gun violence.”

“I’m not going to give up,” he said.

Last week, Biden signed the first significant federal bill on gun safety in decades, just days after the Supreme Court ruled that Americans have a fundamental right to carry a handgun in public.

Yevgen Yelpitiforov counts out the keys of the homes he has been given to look after by friends who have fled Ukraine since Russia invaded.

“There’s 19 in all,” he said, cradling the bunch in his hands. 

Since the war began the 37-year-old biologist, who works as a gardener to make ends meet, has added another notch to his crowded CV — as a key-keeper.

For the last few months he has been criss-crossing the devastated Kyiv suburbs of Bucha and Irpin looking after homes and house plants abandoned when their owners fled for their lives.

“After the liberation, many of my acquaintances asked me to come and see if their houses were still intact, if they had windows or doors,” he told AFP.

Yevgen would go around and turn on a light to ward off looters, clear up the broken glass, send items on to their owners, or do a bit of gardening.

Soon — as word got around — the keys began accumulating. They would be “sent by mail, or I would take them from a neighbour, or from under the doormat.”

Some keys came with coffee or chocolates, as tokens of gratitude, as Yevgen had been doing it all from the goodness of his heart.

Returning friends would often find a little present from him, a bouquet of flowers or fruit to make them feel “happy”. 

“If it was me, they would have helped me too,” he insisted. “These are my friends, all the keys I have are from the people I know.”

– Gas mask for the fridge –

But sometimes the job stank, literally. “The hardest part” was clearing out rotten food from fridges and freezers left for weeks without electricity. 

“The smell is so bad you could pass out,” he said.

Which is why he is so grateful that someone gave him a Soviet-era gas mask. 

Even after a thorough cleanup, apartments still need to be aired out a few more times because “the smell remains for a week or two”. 

In Bucha, which has become a symbol of crimes carried out by Russian troops, Yevgen parked his car in front of a brand new apartment complex, most of whose windows were blown out. 

Nothing but a pile of metal remained of one car parked outside while another was riddled with shrapnel.  

Yevgen stayed just long enough in a small apartment to water some plants. The only sign of the war was a note on the wall left by Russian soldiers, “Excuse us for breaking in.”

The front door, like most others on this floor, had to be replaced. 

– Sex toys – 

A television voice actor before the war, Oleksandr Furman spent April as a key-keeper, looking after six Kyiv apartments abandoned by his friends.   

His most unusual mission was tidying away the sex toys his ex-girlfriend and her new partner left behind after fleeing the city just after the invasion began in the early hours of February 24. 

“She told me, ‘I can’t ask my mother to do it,'” Oleksandr said, bursting out laughing. “I hid them well…

“I was lucky. I wasn’t shot at, missiles didn’t fall near me,” he said. And by helping the actor felt he was “doing my duty by those who suffered”.   

Back in Irpin, Yevgen filmed some potted plants with his smartphone in a duplex overlooking a school whose roof was blown off. He would send the video to the owners who are abroad.  

At his next stop, workers were putting a new roof on a house with burned walls. He paused to tend to a young evergreen shrub severely scorched by the flames.

“It reminds me of the Ukrainian people,” Yevgen said.

“On one side it is burned, on the other it has the strength to keep growing.”

Here are the latest developments in the war in Ukraine:

– ‘Massive shelling’ of Donbas city –

Russian forces are “massively shelling” the eastern city of Sloviansk, its mayor says, as Moscow pushes deeper into the Donetsk region after taking neighbouring Lugansk at the weekend.

Sloviansk mayor Vadim Lyakh says  the centre and north of the city are being bombarded and urges residents to take shelter.

At least six people and 19 have been injured since Sunday in Sloviansk, one of two major Donetsk cities in Moscow’s sights, along with Kramatorsk.

Russian forces also continue to target the northeastern city of Kharkiv, a month after being driven back from its northern outskirts.

Moscow claims up to 150 Ukrainian troops have been killed in Russian strikes on the city in the past 24 hours.

– Ukraine, allies agree ground rules for reconstruction –

Ukraine and its allies meeting in the Swiss city of Lugano agree a set of principles for rebuilding the war-torn country, including the need to stamp out corruption and uphold the rule of law.

The former Soviet state has long been ranked among the world’s most corrupt countries by Transparency International.

Ukrainian prime minister Denys Shmyhal estimates the cost of rebuilding at $750 billion.

– Ukraine torturing prisoners: Moscow –

Russia says it is investigating the torture of Russian soldiers held prisoner in Ukraine that were recently released as part of a prisoner swap. 

The Russian Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, says one of the 144 Russian soldiers exchanged last week related being treated by doctors without an anaesthetic and being “beaten” and “tortured with electricity” in captivity.

The soldier allegedly said he was left without food and water for days. Another soldier who had his leg amputated was cited as saying he was badly beaten and that a Ukrainian medic poked at his wound.

– NATO starts to ratify Sweden, Finland bids –

NATO launches the process to ratify Sweden and Finland as the newest members of the 30-member defence alliance.

“This is a good day for Finland and Sweden and a good day for NATO,” the alliance’s chief Jens Stoltenberg tells reporters in a joint statement with the Swedish and Finnish foreign ministers.

“With 32 nations around the table, we will be even stronger and our people will be even safer as we face the biggest security crisis in decades,” he says.

– Ukrainian woman wins ‘maths Nobel’ –

Ukraine’s Maryna Viazovska becomes only the second woman to be awarded the prestigious Fields medal, dubbed the Nobel prize for mathematics,

Viazovska, a 37-year-old Kyiv-born math professor who works in the Swiss city of Lausanne, shared the prize with three others.

At the ceremony in Helsinki, she pays tribute to Yulia Zdanovska, a 21-year-old mathematician killed by a Russian missile attack on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv in March.

“When young people die you think, ‘What is the point of my work as a teacher if young, talented people are just wasted in this terrible war?,” she said.

– Cosmonauts hail Russian gains –

Russian cosmonauts on board the International Space Station congratulate Russian forces on capturing the eastern Ukrainian region of Lugansk by being photographed with the flag of the area’s pro-Russian rebels.

Russian space agency Roscosmos posted the photograph on the messaging network Telegram of Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveyev and Sergei Korsakov holding the flag of the self-proclaimed separatist Lugansk People’s Republic. 

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With the city still reeling from a weekend mall shooting that left three dead, Copenhagen on Tuesday prepared to pay tribute to the victims with a memorial service.

Following a call from the city’s mayor, a large memorial is planned for Tuesday evening at 8 pm (1800 GMT) in front of Fields, a shopping complex located between the city centre and the capital’s airport, where the attack occurred.

The shooting shook the city which had just played hosted the opening stages of the Tour de France cycling competition and seen the return of the Roskilde music festival after cancellations for Covid-19.

“It doesn’t happen in Denmark, it happens in the United States,” Susanne Bulow, a 65-year-old local resident, told AFP.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Mayor Sophie Andersen are due to speak at the service, which will also be attended by Crown Prince Frederik, with police expecting “a large number of people.”

A choir performance will also accompany the tributes to the victims.

The Tour de France, back in France, paid tribute to the victims with a minute’s applause before the start of the fourth stage on Tuesday.

The alleged perpetrator of the attack, a 22-year-old Danish man who authorities say was known to mental health services, was remanded in custody in a “closed psychiatric ward” on Monday on murder charges.

– Mental health history –

Police said Tuesday they had no new information to release about the investigation.

According to public broadcaster DR, citing several unnamed sources, the suspected gunman had tried to reach a psychological help line shortly before the attack, but authorities would not confirm this.

According to a former neighbour interviewed by newspaper Berlingske, the suspect was a troubled person from childhood.

The neighbour, who had asked to remain anonymous, told the paper that in school the suspect had troubles coping with the stress of too many people around him.

The 22-year-old is suspected of three murders, with those killed being a 46-year-old Russian man residing in Denmark, a 17-year-old girl and a young man of the same age, both Danish. 

One of them worked in the cinema in the shopping centre, their employer said. 

The suspect is also facing seven counts of attempted murder.

Four of those shot were seriously injured but in stable condition and according to authorities, they are two Danish women aged 19 and 40, a 50-year-old Swedish man and a 19-year-old Swedish woman. 

Three others sustained light injuries from the gunfire: two Danish women aged 15 and 17 and a 45-year-old Afghan man living in the Scandinavian country.

About 20 more people sustained light injuries in the panicked evacuation after the shooting.

The Fields shopping centre has been closed since the attack and is expected to reopen on July 11.