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Sri Lanka is "bankrupt," Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said Tuesday, as the country suffers its worst financial crisis in decades, leaving millions struggling to buy food, medicine and fuel, CNN reported.

Wickremesinghe told lawmakers that negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to revive the country's "collapsed" economy are "difficult," because the South Asian nation of 22 million has entered the talks as a bankrupt country, rather than a developing one. 

"We are now participating in the negotiations as a bankrupt country. Therefore, we have to face a more difficult and complicated situation than previous negotiations," Wickremesinghe said in parliament.

"Due to the state of bankruptcy our country is in, we have to submit a plan on our debt sustainability to (the IMF) separately," he added. "Only when they are satisfied with that plan can we reach an agreement at the staff level. This is not a straightforward process."

Sri Lanka is in the midst of its worst financial crisis in seven decades, after its foreign exchange reserves plummeted to record lows, with dollars running out to pay for essential imports including food, medicine and fuel.

Schools have been suspended and fuel has been limited to essential services. In several major cities, including the commercial capital, Colombo, hundreds continue to queue for hours to buy fuel, sometimes clashing with police and the military as they wait.

On Sunday Sri Lanka's energy minister, Kanchana Wijesekera, said the country had less than a day's worth of fuel left.

"In terms of fuel and food, our country was going to have to face this crisis at some point in time. Fuel was scarce. Food prices went up," he said, adding international crises like Russia's war in Ukraine have made things worse, according to CNN.

"Due to the recent global crises, this situation has become more acute and we who were in the frying pan fell into the oven," Wijesekera said. 

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Wickremesinghe said he hoped that a report on debt restructuring and sustainability would be submitted to the IMF by August. Once there is an agreement, a comprehensive loan assistance program would be prepared for a period of four years, Wickremesinghe said.

His speech in parliament was interrupted by opposition lawmakers chanting cries of "Gota go Home" -- a reference to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was in attendance. 

For months, large numbers of Sri Lankans have been calling for Rajapaksa to resign over accusations of economic mismanagement. 

Wickremesinghe said that by the end of this year, inflation will rise to 60%.

"This will be a difficult and bitter journey," Wickremesinghe said. "But we can get relief at the end of this journey. Progress can be made." 

The British government said on Tuesday it is now advising against all but essential travel to Sri Lanka due to the impact of the economic crisis, CNN reported.

The governor of the last remaining eastern province partly under Ukraine’s control urged his more than 350,000 residents to flee as Russia escalated its offensive and air alerts were issued across nearly the entire country, Associated Press reported.

Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said that getting people out of Donetsk province is necessary to save lives and enable the Ukrainian army better to defend towns from the Russian advance. 

“The destiny of the whole country will be decided by the Donetsk region,” Kyrylenko told reporters in Kramatrosk, the province’s administrative center and home to the Ukrainian military’s regional headquarters.

“Once there are less people, we will be able to concentrate more on our enemy and perform our main tasks,” Kyrylenko said.

The governor’s call for residents to leave appeared to represent one of the biggest suggested evacuations of the war, although it’s unclear whether people will be willing and safely able to flee. According to the U.N. refugee agency, more than 7.1 million Ukrainians are estimated to be displaced within Ukraine, and more than 4.8 million refugees left the country since Russia’s invasion started Feb. 24.

Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy said air alerts were issued Tuesday night in nearly all of the country, in many places after a long period of relative calm during which people searched for an explanation.

“You should not look for logic in the actions of terrorists,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address. “The Russian army does not take any breaks. It has one task — to take people’s lives, to intimidate people — so that even a few days without an air alarm already feel like part of the terror.” 

Much of the military activity appeared concentrated in Ukraine’s east. The Kramatorsk governor said that because they house critical infrastructure such as water filtration plants, Russia’s main targets are now his city and a city 16 kilometers (10 miles) to the north, Sloviansk. Kyrylenko described the shelling as “very chaotic” without “a specific target ... only to destroy civilian infrastructure and residential areas.”

Sloviansk also came under sustained bombardment Tuesday. Mayor Vadim Lyakh said on Facebook that “massive shelling” pummeled Sloviansk, which had a population of about 107,000 before Russian invaded Ukraine more than four months ago. The mayor, who urged residents hours earlier to evacuate, advised them to take cover in shelters, according to Associated Press.

At least one person was killed and seven were wounded Tuesday, Lyakh said. He said the city’s central market and several districts came under attack, adding that authorities were assessing the extent of the damage.

The barrage targeting Sloviansk indicated Russian forces were advanc ing farther into Ukraine’s Donbas region, a mostly Russian-speaking industrial area where the country’s most experienced soldiers are concentrated. 

Sloviansk has previously taken rocket and artillery fire during Russia’s war in Ukraine, but the bombardment picked up in recent days after Moscow took the last major city in neighboring Luhansk province, Lyakh said.

“It’s important to evacuate as many people as possible,” he warned Tuesday morning, adding that shelling damaged 40 houses on Monday.

The Ukrainian military withdrew its troops Sunday from the city of Lysychansk to keep them from being surrounded. Russia’s defense minister and Putin said the city’s subsequent capture put Moscow in control of all of Luhansk, one of two provinces that make up the Donbas, but the regional governor said Tuesday that fighting was continuing on Lysychansk’s outskirts. He said Russian forces were moving weaponry to Donetsk.

The question now is whether Russia can muster enough strength to complete its seizure of the Donbas by taking Donetsk province, too. Putin acknowledged Monday that Russian troops who fought in Luhansk need to “take some rest and beef up their combat capability.”

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Tuesday that Moscow’s main priorities are “preserving the lives and health” of its troops and “excluding the threat to the security of civilians.” 

When Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine more than four months ago, his stated goals were defending the people of the Donbas against Kyiv’s alleged aggression, and the “demilitarization” and “denazifaction” of Ukraine.

Pro-Russia separatists have fought Ukrainian forces and controlled much of the Donbas for eight years. Before the invasion this year, Putin recognized the independence of the two self-proclaimed separatist republics in the region. He also sought to portray the tactics of Ukrainian forces and the government as akin to Nazi Germany’s, claims for which no evidence has emerged, Associated Press reported.

The General Staff of the Ukrainian military said Russian forces also shelled several Donetsk towns and villages around Sloviansk in the past day but were repelled as they tried to advance toward a town about 20 kilometers (12 miles) to the city’s north. South of the city, Russian forces were trying to push toward two more towns and shelling areas near Kramatorsk.

Meanwhile, Moscow-installed officials in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region on Tuesday announced the formation of a new regional government, with a former Russian official at the helm.

Sergei Yeliseyev, the head of the new Moscow-backed government in Kherson, is a former deputy prime minister of Russia’s western exclave of Kaliningrad and also used to work at Russia’s Federal Security Service, or the FSB, according to media reports.

It wasn’t immediately clear what would become of the “military-civic administration” the Kremlin installed earlier. The administration’s head, Vladimir Saldo, said in a Telegram statement that the new government was “not a temporary, not a military, not some kind of interim administration, but a proper governing body.”

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was clinging to power Tuesday after two of his most senior Cabinet ministers quit, saying they had lost confidence in Johnson’s leadership amid shifting explanations about his handling of a sexual misconduct scandal, Associated Press reported.

Treasury chief Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Sajid Javid resigned within minutes of each other, costing Johnson the support of the men responsible for tackling two of the biggest issues facing Britain — the cost-of-living crisis and surging COVID-19 infections.

Both cited Johnson’s credibility after a day in which the prime minister was forced to backtrack on earlier statements about the scandal that has rattled his government for the past six days.

The debacle is only the latest to hit Johnson, who last month narrowly survived a vote of no confidence triggered by similarly shifting stories about lockdown-breaking parties in government offices.

In his letter of resignation, Javid said the confidence vote showed a large number of Conservative Party lawmakers had lost trust in Johnson.

“It was a moment for humility, grip and a new direction,” Javid said. “I regret to say, however, that it is clear this situation will not change under your leadership — and you have therefore lost my confidence too.”

A few minutes later, Sunak echoed those sentiments.

“The public rightly expect government to be conducted properly, competently and seriously,” Sunak said. “I realize that this may be my last ministerial job, but I believe these standards are worth fighting for and that is why I am resigning.”

Both Sunak and Javid are seen as possible contenders to replace Johnson if he is forced out.

While the resignations heaped pressure on the prime minister, Johnson has in the past proven to be an adept politician, fighting off criticism to prolong his career, according to Associated Press.

Johnson quickly named two loyalists to the positions: Steve Barclay got Javid’s old job, while Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi replaces Sunak as Treasury chief, Downing Street said.

At the same time, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss swiftly threw her support behind Johnson. Other Cabinet members, including Culture Secretary Nadine Dories, Defense Secretary Ben Wallace and Home Secretary Priti Patel, were also in his corner.

But Scott Lucas, an emeritus professor at the University of Birmingham and a longtime political observer, said it would be difficult for Johnson to ultimately survive the departure of two such senior members of his Cabinet. 

“He’s not going to go without a fight,” Lucas said. “I just don’t know how many people are left to fight alongside him.”

The latest scandal began Thursday, when Chris Pincher resigned as deputy chief whip amid complaints that he groped two men at a private club. That triggered a series of reports about past allegations leveled against Pincher and questions about why Johnson promoted him to a senior job enforcing party discipline. 

Pincher denies the allegations.

Johnson’s office initially said he wasn’t aware of the previous accusations when he promoted Pincher in February. By Monday, a spokesman said Johnson knew of allegations that were “either resolved or did not progress to a formal complaint.”

That account didn’t sit well with Simon McDonald, the most senior civil servant at the U.K. Foreign Office from 2015 to 2020. In a highly unusual move, McDonald went public with claims that the prime minister’s office wasn’t telling the truth.

McDonald said in a letter to the parliamentary commissioner for standards that he received complaints about Pincher’s behavior in the summer of 2019, shortly after Pincher became a Foreign Office minister. An investigation upheld the complaint, and Pincher apologized for his actions, McDonald said, Associated Press reported.

“Mr. Johnson was briefed in person about the initiation and outcome of the investigation,” McDonald wrote.

Hours after McDonald’s comments were published, Johnson’s office changed its story again, saying the prime minister had forgotten that Pincher was the subject of an official complaint.

Then minutes before Javid and Sunak announced their resignations, Johnson told reporters that Pincher should have been fired from the government after a previous 2019 incident.

Asked if it was an error to appoint Pincher to the government, Johnson said, “I think it was a mistake, and I apologize for it. In hindsight it was the wrong thing to do.”

The shifting explanation from Johnson fueled discontent within the Cabinet after ministers were forced to publicly deliver the prime minister’s denials, only to have the explanation shift the next day.

Johnson’s authority had already been shaken by last month’s confidence vote. Although he survived, 41% of Conservatives voted to remove him from office. But until Tuesday his Cabinet had largely stayed put and loyal.

Concerns about Johnson’s leadership were fueled by his responses to months of allegations about lockdown-breaking parties in government offices that ultimately resulted in 126 fines, including one levied against Johnson, according to Associated Press.

Two weeks later, Conservative candidates were badly beaten in two special elections to fill vacant seats in Parliament, adding to the discontent within Johnson’s party and suggesting the ongoing accusations were finding a toehold with the public. 

When Pincher resigned last week as deputy chief whip he told Johnson that he “drank far too much” the previous night and had “embarrassed myself and other people.”

Johnson initially refused to suspend Pincher from the Conservative Party, but he relented after a formal complaint about the groping allegations was filed with parliamentary authorities.

Ministers representing the Nepali Congress in the government have demanded resignation of Finance Minister Janardan Sharma.

During a Cabinet meeting held at the Office of Prime Minister and Council of Ministers on Tuesday, the ministers urged Finance Minister Sharma to resign from his post.

Sharma is accused of inviting two unauthorized persons to change tax rates on the eve of the budget presentation for the next fiscal year 2022-23.

The ministers said that the Finance Minister should resign on moral grounds as questions have been raised against him in public quarters.