Russia forces withdrew from a strategic Black Sea island Thursday after relentless Ukrainian attacks but kept up their push to encircle the last stronghold of Ukrainian resistance in the eastern province of Luhansk.
Ukraine and the West have accused Russia of blockading Ukrainian ports to prevent exports of grain, contributing to the global food crisis. Russia has denied the accusations and said that Ukraine needs to remove mines from the Black Sea to allow safe navigation.
The island early on took on legendary significance for Ukraine's resistance to the Russian invasion, when Ukrainian troops there reportedly received a demand from a Russian warship to surrender or be bombed. The answer supposedly came back, "Go yourself."The island's Ukrainian defenders were captured by the Russians but later freed as part of a prisoner exchange.
Russian troops and their separatist allies control 95% of Luhansk and about half of Donetsk, the two provinces that make up the mostly Russian-speaking Donbas. -- A senior Russian official warned that Moscow could interpret Western sanctions as a cause for war. "Under certain circumstances, such hostile measures could be perceived as an act of international aggression, or even as a casus belli," Dmitry Medvedev, deputy secretary of Russia's Security Council, said in a speech at a legal forum.
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