KRAMATORSK, Ukraine -- As Russia asserted progress in its goal of seizing the entirety of contested eastern Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin tried Saturday to shake European resolve to punish his country with sanctions and to keep supplying weapons that have supported Ukraine's defense.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Lyman, the second small city to fall last week, had been "completely liberated" by a joint force of Russian soldiers and Kremlin-backed separatists, who have waged war for eight years in the industrial Donbas region bordering Russia.
Ukraine's train system has ferried arms and evacuated citizens through Lyman, a key railway hub in the east. Control of it also would give Russia's military another foothold in the region; it has bridges for troops and equipment to cross the Siverskiy Donets river, which has so far impeded the Russian advance into the Donbas.
Ukrainian officials have sent mixed signals on Lyman. On Friday, Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said Russian troops controlled most of it and were trying to press their offensive toward Bakhmut, another city in the region. On Saturday, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar disputed Moscow's claim that Lyman had fallen, saying fighting there was still ongoing.
In his Saturday video address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the situation in the east as "very complicated" and said the "Russian army is trying to squeeze at least some result" by focusing its efforts there.
The Kremlin said Putin held an 80-minute phone call Saturday with the leaders of France and Germany in which he warned against the continued transfers of Western weapons to Ukraine and blamed the conflict's disruption to global food supplies on Western sanctions.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron urged an immediate cease-fire and a withdrawal of Russian troops, according to the chancellor's spokesperson, and called on Putin to engage in serious, direct negotiations with Zelenskyy on ending the fighting.
A Kremlin readout of the call said Putin affirmed "the openness of the Russian side to the resumption of dialogue." The three leaders, who had gone weeks without speaking during the spring, agreed to stay in contact, it added.
The three leaders spoke for 80 minutes in a phone call at the initiative of the French and German leaders, a news release from the German government said. Scholz and Macron called on Putin to negotiate directly with Zelenskyy to end the three-month conflict.
Putin said Moscow was ready to continue peace talks with Kyiv, Russia's Tass news agency reported, citing the Kremlin press service. He blamed the lack of diplomatic progress on Ukraine. Zelenskyy said Friday that Ukraine was not eager to talk with Putin but that negotiations would be necessary to stop the war.
The German and French leaders also called on Putin to improve the "humanitarian situation of the civilian population" in Ukraine. Putin, meanwhile, warned the West against continuing to send Ukraine Western weapons, Tass reported.
Putin, Scholz and Macron also discussed the global food crisis, which has been exacerbated by Russia's blockade of Ukrainian ports. The U.N. World Food Program warned that millions of people around the world will face rising food prices and hunger as Russia obstructs Ukrainian grain exports.
Putin pledged to Scholz and Macron that if Ukraine demines areas of the sea around ports, Russia would not use the opportunity to take "offensive actions," the German statement said. The three leaders agreed that the United Nations would play a key role in reaching an agreement on opening the ports.
"Russia is ready to help find options for unhampered exports of grain, including exports of Ukrainian grain from the Black Sea ports," the Kremlin said, according to Tass.
But Putin repeated Moscow's misleading claim that Western sanctions were primarily to blame for global food supply issues. Putin told Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi in a phone call Thursday that the West must lift sanctions in order for Russia to take action on the food crisis, according to a Kremlin readout of the call.
But Russia's recent progress in Donetsk and Luhansk, the two provinces that make up the Donbas, could further embolden Putin. Since failing to occupy Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, Russia has set out to seize the last parts of the region not controlled by the separatists.
Russia has intensified efforts to capture the cities of Sievierodonetsk and nearby Lysychansk, which are the last major areas under Ukrainian control in Luhansk.
Luhansk Gov. Serhii Haidai reported that Ukrainian fighters repelled an assault on Sievierodonetsk but Russian troops still pushed to encircle them. He later said Russian forces had seized a hotel on the city's outskirts, damaged 14 high-rise buildings and were fighting in the streets with Ukrainian forces.
Sievierodonetsk Mayor Oleksandr Striuk said the previous day that some 1,500 civilians in the city, which had a prewar population of around 100,000, have died, including from a lack of medicine or diseases that could not be treated.
On Saturday, people who managed to flee Lysychansk described intensified shelling, especially last week, that left them unable to leave basement bomb shelters.
Yanna Skakova left the city Friday with her 18-month-old and 4-year-old sons and cried as she sat in a train bound for western Ukraine. Her husband stayed behind to take care of their house and animals.
"It's too dangerous to stay there now," she said, wiping away tears.
Russia's advance raised fears that residents could experience the same horrors seen in the southeastern port city of Mariupol, which endured a three-month siege before it fell earlier this month. Residents who had not yet fled faced the choice of trying to do so now or staying. Mariupol became a symbol of massive destruction and human suffering, as well as of Ukrainian determination to defend the country.
In the call with Macron and Scholz, the Kremlin said, Putin emphasized that Russia was working to "establish a peaceful life in Mariupol and other liberated cities in the Donbas."
Germany and France brokered a 2015 peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia that would have given a large degree of autonomy to Moscow-backed rebel regions in eastern Ukraine. However, the agreement stalled long before Russia's invasion in February. Any hope that Paris and Berlin would anchor a renewed peace agreement now appears unlikely with both Kyiv and Moscow taking uncompromising stands.
Ukrainian authorities have reported that Kremlin-installed officials in seized cities have started airing Russian news broadcasts, introduced Russian area codes, imported Russian school curriculum and taken other steps to annex the areas.
Russian-held areas of the southern Kherson region have shifted to Moscow time and "will no longer switch to daylight saving time, as is customary in Ukraine," Russia's state news agency RIA Novosti quoted Krill Stremousov, a Russian-installed local official, as saying Saturday.
The press service of the Ukrainian Naval Forces said two Russian vessels "capable of carrying up to 16 missiles" were ready for action in the Black Sea, adding that only shipping routes established through multilateral treaties may be considered safe.
Ukrainian officials have pressed Western nations for more sophisticated and powerful weapons. The U.S. Defense Department would not confirm a Friday CNN report saying the Biden administration was preparing to send long-range rocket systems.
Russia's ambassador to the United States, Anatoliy Antonov, said Saturday that such a move would be "unacceptable" and admonished the White House to "abandon statements about the military victory of Ukraine."
Moscow is also trying to rattle Sweden and Finland's determination to join NATO. Russia's Defense Ministry said its navy successfully launched a new hypersonic missile from the Barents Sea that struck its target about 600 miles away.
If confirmed, the launch could spell trouble for NATO voyages in the Arctic and North Atlantic. The Zircon, described as the world's fastest non-ballistic missile, can be armed with either a conventional or a nuclear warhead and is said to be impossible to stop with current defense systems.
Information for this article was contributed by Yuras Karmanau, Elena Becatoros, Andrea Rosa, Andrew Katell and staff members of The Associated Press and Julian Duplain, Amy Cheng, Victoria Bisset and Andrew Jeong of The Washington Post.
People wait to receive humanitarian aid in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, Saturday, May 28, 2022. (AP Photo/Andriy Andriyenko)
A Donetsk People's Republic militia's multiple rocket launcher fires from its position not far from Panteleimonivka, in territory under the government of the Donetsk People's Republic, eastern Ukraine, Saturday, May 28, 2022. (AP Photo/Alexei Alexandrov)
A man fleeing from shelling boards an evacuation train in a soft stretcher at the train station in Pokrovsk, eastern Ukraine, eastern Ukraine, Saturday, May 28, 2022. Fighting has raged around Lysychansk and neighbouring Sievierodonetsk, the last major cities under Ukrainian control in Luhansk region. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
A nun attends a mass at Kyiv Pechersk Lavra Monastery in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, May 28, 2022. The leaders of the Orthodox churches in Ukraine that were affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church have announced on a statement they will sever ties with Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
A Donetsk People's Republic militia serviceman speak on a communication device prior to fire with a multiple rocket launcher from its position not far from Panteleimonivka, in territory under the government of the Donetsk People's Republic, eastern Ukraine, Saturday, May 28, 2022. (AP Photo/Alexei Alexandrov)
A Ukrainian serviceman walks past a gypsum manufacturing plant destroyed in a Russian bombing in Bakhmut, eastern Ukraine, eastern Ukraine, Saturday, May 28, 2022. Fighting has raged around Lysychansk and neighbouring Sievierodonetsk, the last major cities under Ukrainian control in Luhansk region. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
People receive humanitarian aid in the village of Andriivka, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Saturday, May 28, 2022. (AP Photo/Andriy Andriyenko)
This satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows towed artillery in firing position deployed in the north of Lyman, Ukraine, Thursday May 26, 2022. (Satellite image ©2022 Maxar Technologies via AP)
People fleeing Lysychansk sit on an evacuation train at the train station in Pokrovsk, eastern Ukraine, eastern Ukraine, Saturday, May 28, 2022. Fighting has raged around Lysychansk and neighbouring Sievierodonetsk, the last major cities under Ukrainian control in Luhansk region. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)