Ukraine’s military said early Sunday that Russian forces were largely busy reparing for losses in people and equipment, with otherwise little movement by the invading forces. According to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Russia is also mobilizing people in the Donetsk region of Russia-occupied Ukraine to strengthen its army.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday it had fired several long-range weapons at targets in Ukraine, including its new Kinzel air-launched ballistic missile. This is the second time in as many days that Russia has said it has used the weapon of Russian President Vladimir Putin, unveiled in 2018. Western and Ukrainian experts have cast doubt on Russia’s initial claim of using a sophisticated missile.
Russia’s ministry also said it attacked a military base in Ukraine’s Zhytomyr region, where it allegedly located foreign fighters.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday suspended the activities of 11 political parties with ties to Russia, which Ukrainian officials believe serve as fronts for Kremlin interests. Moscow has been seeking to install pro-Russian leaders in the conquered territories since the beginning of its invasion.
Ukrainian authorities have long considered some of them to be fronts for the Kremlin. The leader of one of them, Viktor Medvedchuk, fled his home where he was under house arrest in Kyiv after the start of Russia’s invasion last month, according to Ukrainian officials.
In the beleaguered port city of Mariupol, where fighting has reached the streets, Ukrainian officials said an art school where some 400 people had taken refuge was bombed by Russia, leaving people trapped under rubble. His position was precarious.
The incident happened a few days after the bombing of a theater in the city. A local official said rescue workers had rescued 130 people from the rubble as of Friday, although 1,300 people remained trapped in the basement of the theatre.
Mariupol’s city council said on Sunday that some 4,000 civilians had been killed in the city since fighting began.
Mariupol is a strategic objective for Moscow as it attempts to open an overland corridor to the annexed territory of Crimea and transfer momentum to its three-week-old offensive. Ukrainian officials said that during weeks of bombing and assault, Ukrainians said they had kept Russian forces at bay on the outskirts of Mariupol, but that changed on Saturday.
A report on the Telegram channel of the Azov Battalion, a volunteer group, said: “Fighting fighting continues in the streets of the city between the defenders of Mariupol and the occupiers, whose members are fighting alongside regular government forces inside the city.”
The capture of Mariupol would be a victory for Russia, which has so far failed to take any major Ukrainian cities since the start of its invasion.
Russia anticipates a swift capture of the traditionally Russian-speaking city of Mariupol, which would have freed its forces to encircle Ukrainian army units in the eastern regions and allowed others to advance towards the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. . But the city has been a tough target, and its defenders have been under several weeks of shelling and siege.
Analysts say Russian military leaders are desperate for a symbolic victory for Mr Putin, and US officials have detected signs of tension in Russian intelligence and defense systems over the lack of military progress.
“Commanders on the Russian side are desperate to ‘win’ — they want to show Putin results,” said Emily Harding, a former Central Intelligence Agency analyst and Senate Intelligence Committee staff member now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. In think tank. “Victory to Mariupol will give them something to show for a huge loss.”
Kyiv has tried to relieve Mariupol, but has so far been unsuccessful. Ukraine’s presidential adviser Oleksey Erestovich said Ukraine’s military had no way of breaking the siege of Russia, addressing criticism the government was not doing enough.
He said Mariupol’s proximity to the Russian border meant that Moscow could easily bring to bear significant air power from nearby military centers such as Crimea and the southern Russian city of Rostov.
The Ukrainian units closest to Mariupol are more than 100 kilometers, or 62 miles away, and the huge lifeless stairs around the city provide no cover from Russian attacks, he said.
Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk said on Sunday that a humanitarian corridor had been agreed to evacuate residents and send aid from Mariupol. He said it is one of seven humanitarian corridors agreed for Sunday.
Parts of the Russian offensive have been suppressed by poor planning and logistics, and forces have faced fierce Ukrainian counterattacks. Some of Russia’s ground progress this week stalled amid rising casualties. Four Russian generals have been killed, the Ukrainian government said. Some US government calculations estimate that 7,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in the action, although officials have warned that those estimates are uncertain.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Saturday that given Russia’s operation “has stalled on several fronts,” it was understandable that Moscow was working to boost its ability to move forward. He said, however, that the US has not seen concrete evidence of this taking place.
Mr Zelensky called for talks with Russia and said in the coming days he would address other countries such as Israel, Italy and Japan, as he addressed the US, Canada, Germany and Switzerland.
“It’s time to meet. Time to talk. It’s time to restore territorial integrity and justice to Ukraine.”
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