Zelenskiy urges unity in renewed push for arms

Bloomberg

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged global leaders to revive the unity they showed during the pandemic and coordinate efforts to deter Vladimir Putin.
“Weapons and sanctions are also a vaccine against Covid-22, which was brought by Russia,” Zelenskiy told a TIME100 Gala event via video-link.
Fighting continued in the east of Ukraine, where Russian forces are pushing to capture the city of Sievierodonetsk, and launch an offensive on Slovyansk, one of the last Ukrainian holdouts in the Donetsk region.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said the situation on the front lines was difficult, with Russian forces able to inflict major losses despite facing resistance. He renewed calls on allies to supply Ukraine with more arms, faster.
Ukraine needs more weapons to support its defense against Russian forces which are inflicting big losses on
the front lines of the war, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Resnikov said.
“The situation on the front lines is difficult. Every day we have up to 100 of our soldiers killed and up to 500 wounded,” Reznikov said on Facebook. “The Kremlin continues to press on by sheer mass, stumbles, faces a strong rebuff and suffers huge casualties. But yet still has forces to advance in some parts of the front.”
Ukraine is grateful to the US, UK, Poland and the Baltic states for supplying it with weapons, but the overall amounts
and the pace of supply is
“absolutely not” satisfactory, he said.
Russian consumers may soon be feeling the impact of its government’s invasion of Ukraine. Major shipping lines like Maersk, CMA-CGM, and Hapag-Lloyd suspended operations shortly after the onset of Russia’s invasion, leaving customers in short supply.
The average number of container ships in Russian waters has dropped 60% from the November peak, according to Bloomberg calculations. The damage inflicted on Russia by sanctions was on full display as the economy swung into a contraction of 3% in April from a year earlier.
Lukoil PJSC, Russia’s second-biggest oil producer, kept bond cash flowing to investors with its first maturity payment since the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine unleashed a wave of international sanctions.
Investors received $500 million for a dollar-denominated bond, according to people familiar with the transaction, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they’re not authorised to comment publicly. Lukoil — which isn’t sanctioned — is at the centre of a shrinking pool of Russian companies that have managed to stay current on their foreign debts.
Wide-ranging international penalties as well as local restrictions on flows of hard currency abroad make it increasingly difficult for Russian borrowers to get funds into investors’ accounts. The government’s latest coupon payments have yet to make it to bondholders, raising the prospect of the nation’s first sovereign default on its foreign debt in a century.
Belarus will receive $1.5 billion in financial support from Russia to participate in import substitution programs, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Thursday, according to Belta.
Fighting for Sievierodonetsk and nearby areas continues as Russian forces look for weaknesses in the defenses of the eastern city, according to the General Staff of the Ukrainian army. The Russian army and its proxies have gained control over 231 settlements in the eastern region of Donetsk and have launched their push for the city of Slovyansk, Donetsk separatists said on Telegram.
Zelenskiy is set to speak virtually during the Shangri-La Dialogue security conference in Singapore this week that will be attended by defense chiefs from several countries, including the US and China.