Edited by: Fern Sidman
Russia assaulted cities and towns along a boomerang-shaped front hundreds of miles long and poured more troops into the country Tuesday in a potentially pivotal battle for control of Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland of coal mines and factories, as was reported by the Associated Press.
If successful, the Russian offensive in what is known as the Donbas region would essentially slice Ukraine in two and give President Vladimir Putin a badly needed victory after the failed attempt by Moscow’s forces to storm the capital, Kyiv, and heavier-than-expected casualties nearly two months into the war.
The AP reported on Tuesday that the eastern cities of Kharkiv and Kramatorsk came under deadly attack, and Russia also said it struck areas around Zaporizhzhia and Dnipro west of the Donbas with missiles.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said air-launched missiles destroyed 13 Ukrainian troop and weapons locations, while the air force struck 60 other Ukrainian military facilities, including missile warhead storage depots, according to the AP report.
Russian artillery hit nearly 1,300 Ukrainian military facilities and over 1,200 troop concentrations over the past 24 hours, Konashenkov said. The AP reported that the claims could not be independently verified.
Reuters reported that the new Russian offensive in Eastern Ukraine was confirmed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“We can now say that Russian forces have started the battle of the Donbas, for which they have long prepared,” he said in a video address, according to a report on Israel National News.
His comments came after senior officials said Moscow had begun a new offensive push along most of Ukraine’s eastern flank.
Zelenskyy said that Russia had concentrated a significant part of its forces for the offensive, as was reported by INN.
“No matter how many soldiers are drawn there, we will defend ourselves. We will fight. We will not give up anything Ukrainian,” he stated.
On Sunday, a Russian ultimatum expired for remaining forces to surrender in the port city of Mariupol, but Ukraine vowed to fight to the end, the report indicated.
“The city still has not fallen,” Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said hours after Moscow’s deadline had passed for fighters holed up and surrounded in a sprawling fortress-like steelworks to surrender.
“There’s still our military forces, our soldiers. So they will fight to the end,” he stated in an interview with ABC’s “This Week”.
INN also reported that Zelenskyy, meanwhile, warned on Sunday that Russia might use chemical or even nuclear weapons and urged world leaders to prepare for such contingencies.
Speaking with CNN in an interview, Zelenskyy said the potential use of chemical or nuclear weapons posed a threat to the entire planet and urged foreign powers to prepare anti-radiation medicine and air raid shelters.
“Not only me – all of the world, all of the countries have to be worried because it can be not real information, but it can be truth,” he stated, according to the INN report.
In what both sides described as a new phase of the war, the AP reported that the Russian assault began Monday along a front stretching more than 300 miles (480 kilometers) from northeastern Ukraine to the country’s southeast. Ukraine’s military said Russian forces tried to “break through our defenses along nearly the entire front line.”
Weeks ago, after the abortive Russian push to take Kyiv, the Kremlin declared that its main goal was the capture of the mostly Russian-speaking Donbas, where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces for eight years, as was reported by the AP.
A Russian victory in the Donbas would deprive Ukraine of the industrial assets concentrated there, including mines, metals plants and heavy-equipment factories.
A senior U.S. defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the Pentagon’s assessments of the war, said the Russians had added two more combat units, known as battalion tactical groups, in Ukraine over the preceding 24 hours. The AP reported that brought the total number of units in the country to 78, all of them the south and the east, up from 65 last week, the official said.
That would translate to about 55,000 to 62,000 troops, based on what the Pentagon said at the start of the war was the typical unit strength of 700 to 800 soldiers, according to the AP report. But accurately determining Russia’s fighting capacity at this stage is difficult.
A European official, likewise speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss military assessments, said Russia also has 10,000 to 20,000 foreign fighters in the Donbas. The AP reported that they are a mix of mercenaries from Russia’s private Wagner Group and Russian proxy fighters from Syria and Libya, according to the official.
INN also reported that State Department officials are looking at every tool available to them to hold Russia accountable for the war in Ukraine, including the possibility of labeling Russia a state sponsor of terrorism, a senior administration official said on Monday, according to CNN, adding the process could take weeks before a determination is made.
“We’re taking a close look at the facts. We’re taking a close look at the law,” said State Department spokesperson Ned Price on CNN when asked about the possibility of designating Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism, as was reported by INN.
“Whether it is this authority, whether it’s any other authority available to us under the law, we will apply it if it’s effective and appropriate,” he added.
The definition of a state sponsor of terrorism is a country that has “repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism,” according to the State Department. There are only four countries that are currently labeled state sponsors of terrorism by the US: North Korea, Iran, Cuba and Syria, according to the INN report.
Price’s comments follow a Washington Post report last week which said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a direct appeal to US President Joe Biden for the United States to designate Russia a state sponsor of terrorism.
Zelenskyy’s request, the report said, came during a recent phone call with Biden that centered on the West’s multifaceted response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
INN reported that Biden did not commit to specific actions during the call, sources said, adding that Biden told his Ukrainian counterpart he is willing to explore a range of proposals to exert greater pressure on Moscow.
Last week, Biden toughened his criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and said Putin is committing genocide in Ukraine.
Biden, while delivering remarks in Menlo, Iowa, accused Putin of committing genocide in Ukraine as he blamed the Russian President for recent price hikes at the pump, as was reported by INN.
“Your family budget, your ability to fill up your tank, none of it should hinge on whether a dictator declares war and commits genocide half a world away,” he said.
Zelenskyy later praised Biden and tweeted, “True words of a true leader. Calling things by their names is essential to stand up to evil. We are grateful for US assistance provided so far and we urgently need more heavy weapons to prevent further Russian atrocities.”
While Ukraine portrayed the attacks on Monday as the start of the long-feared offensive in the east, some observers noted that an escalation has been underway there for some time and questioned whether this was truly the start of a new offensive, as was reported by the AP.
The U.S. official said that the offensive in the Donbas has begun in a limited way, mainly in an area southwest of the city of Donetsk and south of Izyum.
The AP reported that Justin Crump, a former British tank commander now with the strategic advisory company Sibylline, said the Ukrainian comments could, in part, be an attempt to persuade allies to send more weapons.
“What they’re trying to do by positioning this, I think, is … focus people’s minds and effort by saying, ‘Look, the conflict has begun in the Donbas,’” Crump said, according to the AP report. “That partly puts pressure on NATO and EU suppliers to say, ‘Guys, we’re starting to fight now. We need this now.’”
European and American arms have been key to bolstering Ukraine’s defense, helping the under-gunned country to hold off the Russians, as was reported by the AP. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday that the Netherlands would send “heavier material,” including armored vehicles.
Associated Press journalists in Kharkiv said at least four people were killed and three wounded in a Russian attack on a residential area of the city. The attack occurred as residents attempted to maintain a sense of normalcy, with municipal workers planting spring flowers in public areas.
An explosion also rocked Kramatorsk, killing at least one person and wounding three, according to AP journalists at the scene.
Eyewitness accounts and reports from officials have given a broad picture of the extent of the Russian advance, the AP reported. But independent reporting in the parts of the Donbas held by Russian forces and separatists is severely limited, making it difficult to know what is happening in many places on the ground.
Military experts said the Russians’ goal is to encircle Ukrainian troops from the north, south and east, as was reported by the AP.
Key to the campaign is the capture of Mariupol, the now-devastated city in the Donbas that the Russians have besieged since the early days of the war. The AP reported that taking Mariupol would deprive Ukraine of a vital outlet to the sea and complete a land bridge between Russia and the Crimean Peninsula, seized from Ukraine from 2014.
It would also free up Russian troops to move elsewhere in the Donbas.
A few thousand Ukrainian troops, by the Russians’ estimate, remained holed up in a sprawling Mariupol steel plant, representing what was believed to be the last major pocket of resistance in the city, as was reported by the AP.
On Tuesday, the AP reported that Russia issued a new ultimatum to the Ukrainian defenders to surrender, saying those who come out will “keep their lives,” and said a cease-fire was being declared in the area so the combatants could leave the plant.
The Ukrainians have ignored previous such offers, and there was no immediate confirmation a cease-fire occurred.
The Kremlin-backed leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, whose forces have taken part in the fighting in Mariupol, said on a messaging app that Russian forces would root out the Ukrainian resistance within hours and take full control of the steel mill on Tuesday, according to the AP report.
Kadyrov is known for his bluster and has repeatedly predicted the city’s fall in the past.
In other war related news, INN reported that Ukraine Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal sent a personal letter to Chief Rabbi of Kyiv Rabbi Yonatan Markovich and the Ukrainian Jewish community, on the occasion of Passover.
“Passover is the day when believers commemorate God’s miracles for the Jewish people, liberation from slavery and spiritual and physical independence,” Shmyhal said in his letter. “For Ukrainians and Jews alike, freedom and independence are a central aspiration and the most important value.”
“During this difficult time, when the enemy arrived in our country, millions of Ukrainian citizens, regardless of ethnic origin, displayed incredible courage and resilience, defending our desire for freedom and liberty with weapons in hand, rescuing civilians from shelling, and volunteering. The whole world has seen the national unity of our people.”
In a conversation between the two, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal thanked Rabbi Markowitz for his mobilization to save the citizens of Ukraine, the rescue of those in need, and assistance to those in need of medicine, food, and medical equipment, according to the INN report.
Thousands of Jews were still left in Kyiv, unable to purchase water, food and medicine. INN reported that Rabbi Markowitz is currently conducting a fundraising campaign, “Saving the Jews of Kyiv,” for the purpose of purchasing food and medicine for those who remain in Kyiv and cannot be rescued. Most of them are elderly and sick Holocaust survivors.
Chief Rabbi of Kyiv Rabbi Yonatan Markovich said: “On my behalf and on behalf of the Jewish community in the whole of Ukraine, I thank Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal for the warm blessings. In the bombed-out Kyiv, there are still thousands of Jews in need, and Jews and Israelis living in Kyiv and Ukraine.
(Sources: AP, INN)
