New Delhi: Looms in a showdown Ukraine Later Russia Appointed a new military commander and looked to focus his attacks in the east.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that this week “Russian troops will advance to even greater operations in the east of our country”.
Ukraine’s fate as the war south and east depends on whether the US will help match the increase in Russian weapons, he said: “Honestly, will we be able to (survive), Depends on… Unfortunately, I don’t believe we’ll get everything we need.”
More than six weeks of war in Ukraine has leveled cities, killed untold thousands and left Moscow economically and politically isolated, and experts say the next stage of the fight is a full-scale invasion. which may determine the course of the conflict.
In Washington, a senior US official said Russia has appointed General Alexander Dvornikov, one of its most experienced military chiefs, to oversee the invasion.
Until now, Russia had no central combat commander on the ground.
Dvornikov, 60, takes over as Russian forces prepare to focus on expanding control to the east of Ukraine, where Russia-backed separatists have fought Ukrainian forces since 2014, declaring some areas in the Donbass region independent Is.
Western military analysts say Russia’s attack is focused on a sickle-shaped arc in eastern Ukraine from Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city in the north to Kherson in the south.
This could counter Russia’s earlier problem of expanding its offensive over a much wider geographical area.
Recently released Maxar Technologies satellite imagery showed an 8-mile (13-kilometer) convoy of military vehicles headed south through Ukraine to the Donbass, stopping outside Kyiv before trying to take Russia’s capital. Recalls the images of the convoy that happened.
The Ukrainian military command said on Sunday, Russian forces opened fire on government-controlled Kharkiv and sent reinforcements to Izium in the southeast to try to break through Ukraine’s defences. The Russians also continued their siege of Mariupol, a major southern port that has been under attack and besieged for about a month and a half.
The spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, Major General Igor Konashenkov, said that Russia’s military used aerial missiles to hit Ukraine’s S-300 air-defense missile systems in the southern Mykolaiv region and at an air base in Chuhuyev, a city Not far from Kharkiv.
Konashenkov said Russian cruise missiles fired from the sea destroyed the headquarters of a Ukrainian military unit located to the west in the Dnipro region. Neither the Ukrainian nor the Russian military claims could be independently verified.
Missiles struck the airport twice in Ukraine’s fourth-largest city of Dnipro on Sunday.
In Mariupol, Russia deployed Chechen fighters, who were considered particularly fierce. Capturing the city on the Azov Sea would give Russia a land bridge to the Crimean peninsula, which Russia seized from Ukraine eight years ago.
,
Ukraine is preparing for a “big battle” against Moscow’s forces in the country’s east, officials in Kyiv said, as Pope Francis Sunday called for an Easter cease-fire to end the war.
Evacuations resumed on Saturday from Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine, where 52 people were killed in a missile attack on a railway station a day earlier, as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson became the latest Western leader to visit Kyiv.
Appreciating the country’s response to the Russian offensive, Johnson offered Ukraine armored vehicles and anti-ship missiles, vital to deter the Russian naval siege of Black Sea ports, to ensure that the country But “will never be attacked again”.
His proposal was stated by President Volodymyr Zelensky that Kyiv was ready for a Russian attack.
“Unfortunately, we see in parallel the preparation of important battles, some people call decisive in the east,” he said at a news conference with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehmer on Saturday.
“We are prepared to fight and look in parallel to end this war through diplomacy.”
Pope Francis meanwhile called for an Easter ceasefire to pave the way for peace in Ukraine through “real dialogue”.
He told a gathering in St. Peter’s Square, “Let the Easter ceasefire begin. But not to provide more weapons and to restart the war – no! – a conflict that leads to peace through real dialogue.” Will go.”
The Pontiff condemned a war where “defenseless civilians” suffered “heinous massacres and dastardly cruelty”.
“What’s the point of putting a flag on a pile of rubble?” He asked.
Zelensky’s adviser Mykhailo Podolik said Ukraine should back Russia in the eastern Donbass region, where Moscow controls two separatist regions, before a meeting between the Ukrainian leader and the Russian president could take place. Vladimir Putin,
“Ukraine is ready for big battles. Ukraine has to win them, including the Donbass. And once that happens, Ukraine will have a more powerful negotiating position,” he was quoted by Interfax news agency as on national television. said.
“Then the president will meet. It may take two weeks, three.”
A video released by Zelensky’s office showed him and the British prime minister walking through empty city streets to Kyiv’s historic Maidan Square as snipers kept watch.
Johnson said the discovery of large numbers of civilian bodies in Ukrainian cities had “permanently polluted” Putin’s reputation.
An AFP reporter saw at least two bodies found inside a manhole at a petrol station on a motorway outside Kyiv on Sunday.
The bodies appeared to be wearing a mix of civilian and military clothing.
A distraught woman appeared at the manhole and peeped inside, before she broke down to the ground.
She cried “my son, my son”.
Six weeks after the Russian invasion, Moscow shifted its focus to eastern and southern Ukraine, as stiff resistance thwarted plans to rapidly capture Kyiv.
With thousands killed in fighting and more than 11 million fleeing their homes or country, the Ukrainian president called on the West to follow Britain’s example on military aid.
“We need even more sanctions against Russia,” Zelensky said in a video address on Saturday.
“We need more weapons for our state.”
– ‘War on civilians’ –
As Russian forces regroup in Ukraine’s east and south, local officials are urging residents to flee before it’s too late.
At least two people were killed in the bombings in and around the northeastern city of Kharkiv, the governor said. Oleg Sinegubov said on Facebook on Sunday, 66 attacks reported in 24 hours.
“The Russian army continues to wage war on civilians because of the lack of victories at the front,” he said.
The mayor of East Lisichansk, Oleksandr Zika, on Saturday called on residents to evacuate as soon as possible due to the continued shelling by Russian forces.
Meanwhile, in Kramatorsk, minibuses gathered at a church to collect shaken people. About 80 people, most of them elderly, were taking shelter in a building near the target station.
The local station served as the main evacuation center for refugees from parts of the eastern Donbass region that is still under Ukrainian control.
AFP reporters at the station saw the remains of a missile tagged in white with the words “for our children” in Russian – a call for their own loss by pro-Russian separatists since fighting broke out in the Donbass in 2014 The expression used to do.
According to commentary published by the Interfax news agency, the governor of Donetsk claimed that a missile with cluster weapons – banned by an international treaty – was used in the attack.
– NATO plans new army –
The President of the European Commission, speaking from Warsaw on Saturday Ursula von der Leyen said a global pledge program for Ukrainian refugees has raised 10.1 billion euros ($11 billion).
In another sign of Western solidarity, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the military alliance was planning a permanent military force along its border to prevent further Russian aggression.
“What we are seeing now is a new reality, a new normal for European security,” he said in an interview with Britain’s Daily Telegraph.
“Therefore, we have now asked our military commanders to provide options for long-term adaptation to NATO, which we call reset.”
He said the new force would be one of the “long-term consequences” of Putin’s aggression.
Russian troops appear intent on building a long-sought land link between the Moscow-backed separatist regions of Donetsk and Lugansk in occupied Crimea and the Donbass region.
Mounting evidence of the atrocities has also enthused Ukraine’s allies in the European Union, which has ratified a ban on Russian coal, amassed billions in the assets of sanctioned individuals and closed its ports to Russian ships. has ordered.
Buka – where officials say hundreds were killed, some with their hands tied – has become a derision for the brutality allegedly committed under Russian occupation.
And Ukrainian officials say they are uncovering even more devastation in nearby cities.
– prisoner exchange –
Ukraine said on Saturday it had completed a third prisoner exchange with Russia, bringing 12 soldiers and 14 civilians back home.
But Moscow said Russian troops also fired at a Ukrainian ship trying to evacuate commanders of the Azov battalion from the southeastern city of Mariupol.
The Azov Special Operations Detachment is fighting Russian forces in Mariupol – the scene of some of the war’s most severe civilian suffering – as it lies between pro-Russian separatist areas east of Russia-occupied Crimea and Ukraine.
Fighting in the region has become increasingly fierce as Russia shifts its focus.
Donetsk’s governor said five civilians were also killed in Russian shelling and five others were wounded on Saturday in two eastern Ukrainian cities.
Pavlo Kirilenko said in a Telegram post that four of them were killed in the city of Vuglader and one in the city of Novomikhaylovka.
The Ukrainian military announced on Facebook that it had “destroyed four tanks, eight armored vehicles and seven enemy vehicles”, as well as “one plane, one helicopter” and drones.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that this week “Russian troops will advance to even greater operations in the east of our country”.
Ukraine’s fate as the war south and east depends on whether the US will help match the increase in Russian weapons, he said: “Honestly, will we be able to (survive), Depends on… Unfortunately, I don’t believe we’ll get everything we need.”
More than six weeks of war in Ukraine has leveled cities, killed untold thousands and left Moscow economically and politically isolated, and experts say the next stage of the fight is a full-scale invasion. which may determine the course of the conflict.
In Washington, a senior US official said Russia has appointed General Alexander Dvornikov, one of its most experienced military chiefs, to oversee the invasion.
Until now, Russia had no central combat commander on the ground.
Dvornikov, 60, takes over as Russian forces prepare to focus on expanding control to the east of Ukraine, where Russia-backed separatists have fought Ukrainian forces since 2014, declaring some areas in the Donbass region independent Is.
Western military analysts say Russia’s attack is focused on a sickle-shaped arc in eastern Ukraine from Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city in the north to Kherson in the south.
This could counter Russia’s earlier problem of expanding its offensive over a much wider geographical area.
Recently released Maxar Technologies satellite imagery showed an 8-mile (13-kilometer) convoy of military vehicles headed south through Ukraine to the Donbass, stopping outside Kyiv before trying to take Russia’s capital. Recalls the images of the convoy that happened.
The Ukrainian military command said on Sunday, Russian forces opened fire on government-controlled Kharkiv and sent reinforcements to Izium in the southeast to try to break through Ukraine’s defences. The Russians also continued their siege of Mariupol, a major southern port that has been under attack and besieged for about a month and a half.
The spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, Major General Igor Konashenkov, said that Russia’s military used aerial missiles to hit Ukraine’s S-300 air-defense missile systems in the southern Mykolaiv region and at an air base in Chuhuyev, a city Not far from Kharkiv.
Konashenkov said Russian cruise missiles fired from the sea destroyed the headquarters of a Ukrainian military unit located to the west in the Dnipro region. Neither the Ukrainian nor the Russian military claims could be independently verified.
Missiles struck the airport twice in Ukraine’s fourth-largest city of Dnipro on Sunday.
In Mariupol, Russia deployed Chechen fighters, who were considered particularly fierce. Capturing the city on the Azov Sea would give Russia a land bridge to the Crimean peninsula, which Russia seized from Ukraine eight years ago.
,
Ukraine is preparing for a “big battle” against Moscow’s forces in the country’s east, officials in Kyiv said, as Pope Francis Sunday called for an Easter cease-fire to end the war.
Evacuations resumed on Saturday from Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine, where 52 people were killed in a missile attack on a railway station a day earlier, as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson became the latest Western leader to visit Kyiv.
Appreciating the country’s response to the Russian offensive, Johnson offered Ukraine armored vehicles and anti-ship missiles, vital to deter the Russian naval siege of Black Sea ports, to ensure that the country But “will never be attacked again”.
His proposal was stated by President Volodymyr Zelensky that Kyiv was ready for a Russian attack.
“Unfortunately, we see in parallel the preparation of important battles, some people call decisive in the east,” he said at a news conference with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehmer on Saturday.
“We are prepared to fight and look in parallel to end this war through diplomacy.”
Pope Francis meanwhile called for an Easter ceasefire to pave the way for peace in Ukraine through “real dialogue”.
He told a gathering in St. Peter’s Square, “Let the Easter ceasefire begin. But not to provide more weapons and to restart the war – no! – a conflict that leads to peace through real dialogue.” Will go.”
The Pontiff condemned a war where “defenseless civilians” suffered “heinous massacres and dastardly cruelty”.
“What’s the point of putting a flag on a pile of rubble?” He asked.
Zelensky’s adviser Mykhailo Podolik said Ukraine should back Russia in the eastern Donbass region, where Moscow controls two separatist regions, before a meeting between the Ukrainian leader and the Russian president could take place. Vladimir Putin,
“Ukraine is ready for big battles. Ukraine has to win them, including the Donbass. And once that happens, Ukraine will have a more powerful negotiating position,” he was quoted by Interfax news agency as on national television. said.
“Then the president will meet. It may take two weeks, three.”
A video released by Zelensky’s office showed him and the British prime minister walking through empty city streets to Kyiv’s historic Maidan Square as snipers kept watch.
Johnson said the discovery of large numbers of civilian bodies in Ukrainian cities had “permanently polluted” Putin’s reputation.
An AFP reporter saw at least two bodies found inside a manhole at a petrol station on a motorway outside Kyiv on Sunday.
The bodies appeared to be wearing a mix of civilian and military clothing.
A distraught woman appeared at the manhole and peeped inside, before she broke down to the ground.
She cried “my son, my son”.
Six weeks after the Russian invasion, Moscow shifted its focus to eastern and southern Ukraine, as stiff resistance thwarted plans to rapidly capture Kyiv.
With thousands killed in fighting and more than 11 million fleeing their homes or country, the Ukrainian president called on the West to follow Britain’s example on military aid.
“We need even more sanctions against Russia,” Zelensky said in a video address on Saturday.
“We need more weapons for our state.”
– ‘War on civilians’ –
As Russian forces regroup in Ukraine’s east and south, local officials are urging residents to flee before it’s too late.
At least two people were killed in the bombings in and around the northeastern city of Kharkiv, the governor said. Oleg Sinegubov said on Facebook on Sunday, 66 attacks reported in 24 hours.
“The Russian army continues to wage war on civilians because of the lack of victories at the front,” he said.
The mayor of East Lisichansk, Oleksandr Zika, on Saturday called on residents to evacuate as soon as possible due to the continued shelling by Russian forces.
Meanwhile, in Kramatorsk, minibuses gathered at a church to collect shaken people. About 80 people, most of them elderly, were taking shelter in a building near the target station.
The local station served as the main evacuation center for refugees from parts of the eastern Donbass region that is still under Ukrainian control.
AFP reporters at the station saw the remains of a missile tagged in white with the words “for our children” in Russian – a call for their own loss by pro-Russian separatists since fighting broke out in the Donbass in 2014 The expression used to do.
According to commentary published by the Interfax news agency, the governor of Donetsk claimed that a missile with cluster weapons – banned by an international treaty – was used in the attack.
– NATO plans new army –
The President of the European Commission, speaking from Warsaw on Saturday Ursula von der Leyen said a global pledge program for Ukrainian refugees has raised 10.1 billion euros ($11 billion).
In another sign of Western solidarity, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the military alliance was planning a permanent military force along its border to prevent further Russian aggression.
“What we are seeing now is a new reality, a new normal for European security,” he said in an interview with Britain’s Daily Telegraph.
“Therefore, we have now asked our military commanders to provide options for long-term adaptation to NATO, which we call reset.”
He said the new force would be one of the “long-term consequences” of Putin’s aggression.
Russian troops appear intent on building a long-sought land link between the Moscow-backed separatist regions of Donetsk and Lugansk in occupied Crimea and the Donbass region.
Mounting evidence of the atrocities has also enthused Ukraine’s allies in the European Union, which has ratified a ban on Russian coal, amassed billions in the assets of sanctioned individuals and closed its ports to Russian ships. has ordered.
Buka – where officials say hundreds were killed, some with their hands tied – has become a derision for the brutality allegedly committed under Russian occupation.
And Ukrainian officials say they are uncovering even more devastation in nearby cities.
– prisoner exchange –
Ukraine said on Saturday it had completed a third prisoner exchange with Russia, bringing 12 soldiers and 14 civilians back home.
But Moscow said Russian troops also fired at a Ukrainian ship trying to evacuate commanders of the Azov battalion from the southeastern city of Mariupol.
The Azov Special Operations Detachment is fighting Russian forces in Mariupol – the scene of some of the war’s most severe civilian suffering – as it lies between pro-Russian separatist areas east of Russia-occupied Crimea and Ukraine.
Fighting in the region has become increasingly fierce as Russia shifts its focus.
Donetsk’s governor said five civilians were also killed in Russian shelling and five others were wounded on Saturday in two eastern Ukrainian cities.
Pavlo Kirilenko said in a Telegram post that four of them were killed in the city of Vuglader and one in the city of Novomikhaylovka.
The Ukrainian military announced on Facebook that it had “destroyed four tanks, eight armored vehicles and seven enemy vehicles”, as well as “one plane, one helicopter” and drones.