A European official calls for unprecedented sanctions against Russia, and Kiev announces a new breakthrough on the eastern front

A senior European official called on Friday to suspend Russia's membership in the UN Security Council, while Ukrainian forces announced new progress in Donetsk (eastern Ukraine).

Referring to the Russian war on Ukraine, European Council President Charles Michel said that "when a permanent member of the Security Council wages an unjustified and unreasonable war, and has been condemned by the United Nations General Assembly, that membership should be suspended automatically, in my view."

He said in a speech before the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York that "the use of the veto (veto) should be an exception, but it has become the rule, as we see, and what is required to fix this urgently."

It is noteworthy that the permanent members of the Security Council and have the right to veto the decisions of the Council are: China, the United States, France, Britain and Russia.

And last Thursday, the Security Council witnessed a sharp confrontation between the United States and Russia against the backdrop of the war that Moscow has waged against Ukraine since last February, and the threat of Russian President Vladimir Putin to use weapons of mass destruction.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken accused Russia of tearing up the principles of international law and committing atrocities in Ukraine, while his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, launched an attack on the policies and practices of the West.

Ukrainian progress

On the ground, after its success in achieving gains on the Eastern Front following its counter-attack on the Russian forces, the Ukrainian army announced progress in the Lyman axis (north of Donetsk), for the first time since last May, after the Russian army took control of the region.

On the Kharkiv front, the Ukrainian provincial governor said that Russian forces tried to launch an attack in the Kobyansk region, but suffered heavy losses and retreated.

On the other hand, the pro-Russian authorities said that the air defenses repelled a Ukrainian missile attack targeting Kherson.

And the Russian Defense Ministry announced that its forces had killed more than 320 Ukrainian soldiers in Donetsk province.

The ministry added that its forces launched attacks on Ukrainian forces in Zaporozhye and Mykolaiv, and repelled Ukrainian missile attacks in Kherson Province.

Polls start

Meanwhile, on Friday, the referendum began on the accession of the areas controlled by Russian forces in Ukraine to the Russian Federation.

Referendums included 4 regions in southern and eastern Ukraine, in Donetsk, Zaporozhye and Kherson provinces, and in the whole of Lugansk province.

The first four days of the referendum - which will extend until the 27th of this month - are limited to partial voting by the residents of those areas.

In Kyiv, Ukrainian Presidential Adviser Mikhailo Podolyak said - commenting on the referendums on the territories under Russian control - that there is no legal procedure called a "referendum" in the occupied territories;

Indicating that what is happening is nothing but a propaganda show for recruitment into the Russian forces.

For his part, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmyal said that the issue that worries everyone now is the Russian mobilization and its fake referendums;

But it doesn't change anything for the Ukrainians in terms of strategic goals, he says.

Shmyhal stressed that Ukraine will do everything to liberate its territory, and that Ukraine's partners are ready to support it in this, in addition to their willingness to support the country's recovery and building a new strong European state, as he put it.

international condemnation

In international reactions, US President Joe Biden called for rapid and severe additional economic sanctions against Russia.

The White House also said that these referendums organized by Moscow in Ukraine are a flagrant violation of international law and an insult to the principles of sovereignty, adding that if Moscow annexed parts of Ukraine, the United States would never recognize it.

The G7 strongly condemned the referendums, saying that Russia wanted to use them as a pretext to change the status of Ukraine's sovereign territory.

The Secretary-General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Jens Stoltenberg that the alliance will intensify its support for Ukraine in response to the referendums, which he described as false.

In turn, the European Union's foreign and security policy chief, Josep Borrell, reiterated his rejection of the referendums in Donbass and Kherson, Ukraine.

And he saw - in an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly - that Russia is about to lose the war.