WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Kremlin, asked about US sanctions bill, suggests it would impact Ukraine peace efforts if implemented

The Kremlin said on Monday that it had taken note of comments made by U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham who is sponsoring a tough new sanctions bill on Russia and that its backers should consider its impact on efforts to reach a peace deal on Ukraine.

Graham said in an interview with ABC News on Sunday that President Donald Trump had told him that the sanctions bill - which would impose 500% tariffs on countries like China and India that buy Russian oil - should be brought forward for a vote.

Graham called Trump's decision "a big breakthrough" which he said was part of efforts to bring Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table on Ukraine and give Trump "a tool" to bring that about.

He stressed however that Trump had a waiver and could decide whether or not to sign it into law if and when it passes Congress.

Asked about Graham's comments, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that Russia was aware of the U.S. senator's stance and had taken note of his statement.

"The senator's views are well known to us, they are well known to the whole world. He belongs to a group of inveterate Russophobes. If it were up to him, these sanctions would have been imposed long ago," said Peskov.

"Would that have helped the (Ukraine) settlement (process)? That is a question that those who initiate such events should ask themselves."

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Civilian killed in Ukrainian attack on Donetsk – governor

Ukrainian forces launched a series of missile and drone attacks on the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) on Monday evening, resulting in the death of one civilian and injuries to at least three others, including a teenager, according to DPR head Denis Pushilin.

In a Telegram post, Pushilin reported that long-range air-launched missiles struck the Voroshilovsky district of Donetsk, killing a woman and injuring a male teenager and an adult man. The attack caused fires and significant damage to civilian infrastructure, including the Sokol market, the central department store, and a bank.

“Air defenses here in the Republic have been working nonstop for the last hour. I’ve seen several rockets intercepted in the air, but apparently some of them have made it here to this center,” RT correspondent Roman Kosarev reported from the scene of the strike in Donetsk. “A small shopping center is destroyed. I saw one body of a woman while I was on my way over here.”

The Russian Defense Ministry has yet to confirm the exact type of missiles used in the attack, but early reports suggest Kiev might have fired British-supplied Storm Shadows. “Specialists will try to determine what exactly these fragments are a little bit later on,” Kosarev added, showing suspected fragments of the missile discovered on the scene.

In a separate incident, a kamikaze drone attack targeted Gorlovka, injuring a 19-year-old male in one of the biggest cities in the DPR. Gorlovka, located 50 kilometers north of Donetsk, was home to some 250,000 people before the conflict and has been frequently targeted by Kiev’s forces since 2014. The latest strike destroyed one residential building and damaged 12 others, along with seven civilian infrastructure facilities, including a clinic, a dormitory, three boiler houses, a pharmacy, and a bank branch, according to Pushilin.

Emergency services were engaged in extinguishing the fires and assessing the full extent of the damage. Pushilin stated that all injured individuals were receiving qualified medical assistance.

Last week, the Russian Foreign Ministry accused Kiev of deliberately committing atrocities against civilians in Donbass, including mass killings of the elderly and drone strikes on residential homes.

“This is not an accident, but an inherent flaw – the hallmark of the Kiev authorities. It is a deliberate policy that has already been elevated to the level of state doctrine,” the ministry’s spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said while speaking at a conference on the “atrocities and war crimes by the Kiev regime in Dzerzhynsk,”another DPR city some 30 km north of Donetsk that was liberated by Russian troops in February.

Donetsk and its sister republic, the Lugansk People’s Republic, declared independence following the Western-backed coup in Kiev in 2014. After years of Ukraine’s refusal to implement the Minsk Agreements and Kiev’s continued shelling of civilian areas in the breakaway regions, Russia launched its special military operation on February 24, 2022. In late September 2022, the two republics, colloquially known as the Donbass, along with the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, conducted referendums on joining Russia.

On Monday, Governor Leonid Pasechnik announced that the Russian military had taken control of the entirety of the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR). Meanwhile, Russian forces continue operations to liberate the parts of the DPR that remain under Kiev’s control.

Reuters/RT