Russians stymied in Ukraine; Finland favours joining NATO
Kyiv: Almost three months after Russia shocked the world by invading Ukraine, its military faced a bogged-down war, the prospect of a bigger NATO and a defending country buoyed by its win in a hugely popular pan-European music competition on Sunday.
Finland announced it would apply to join NATO, as top diplomats from the Western alliance, including US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, gathered Sunday in Berlin to discuss the war.
Sweden's governing party plans to announce its position on seeking NATO membership later Sunday.
The two nonaligned Nordic nations becoming part of the alliance would pose an affront to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has cited NATO's post-Cold War expansion in Eastern Europe as a threat to Russia. NATO says it is a purely defensive alliance.
Ukraine said it was holding off Russian offensives Sunday in the country's east. Western military officials said the campaign Moscow launched there after its forces failed to seize Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, had slowed to a snail's pace.
The brutal invasion (by) Russia is losing momentum, NATO Deputy Secretary-General Mircea Geoana said.
We know that with the bravery of the Ukrainian people and army, and with our help, Ukraine can win this war.
Ukraine, meanwhile, celebrated a morale-boosting victory in the Eurovision Song Contest.
The folk-rap ensemble Kalush Orchestra won the glitzy, televised Eurovision contest with its song Stefania, which has become a popular anthem among Ukrainians during the war. Votes from home viewers across Europe cemented the victory.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed his nation would claim the customary honour of hosting the next annual competition.
Step by step, we are forcing the occupiers to leave the Ukrainian land, Zelenskyy said.
Russian and Ukrainian fighters are engaged in a grinding battle for the country's eastern industrial heartland, the Donbas.
Ukraine's most experienced and best-equipped soldiers are based in eastern Ukraine, where they have fought Moscow-backed separatists for eight years.
The Ukrainian military said Sunday that it had held off a renewed Russian offensive near Bakhmut and Slavyansk, in the eastern Dontesk region.
A regional official said Russian troops also made renewed attempts at a breakthrough near the eastern city of Izyum early Sunday, but were held back by Ukrainian forces.
The enemy is constantly checking the positions of our armed forces, trying to break through them, but has had no success and again suffered heavy human and equipment losses, Oleh Sinegubov, the governor of Ukraine's Kharkiv region, wrote in a Telegram post.
His claims could not be independently verified.
Britain's Defense Ministry said in its daily intelligence update Sunday that the Russian army had lost up to one-third of the combat strength it committed to Ukraine in late February and continued to suffer "consistently high levels of attrition while failing to gain any substantial territory.
Russia's Donbas offensive has lost momentum and fallen significantly behind schedule, the ministry said on Twitter, adding that the forces are suffering continued low morale and reduced combat effectiveness.
Under the current conditions, Russia is unlikely to dramatically accelerate its rate of advance over the next 30 days, the ministry said.
The assessments of Russia's war performance by Ukraine's supporters came as Russian troops retreated from around Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, after bombarding it for weeks.
