Russia Ratchets up Battle for Control of Eastern Ukraine

18 April 2022, Ukraine, Mykolaiv: Ukrainian soldiers inspect a destroyed house after Russian shelling above the village of Shevchenko, near the front line during fighting between Russian and Ukrainian armies in Mykolaiv Oblast. (dpa)
18 April 2022, Ukraine, Mykolaiv: Ukrainian soldiers inspect a destroyed house after Russian shelling above the village of Shevchenko, near the front line during fighting between Russian and Ukrainian armies in Mykolaiv Oblast. (dpa)
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Russia Ratchets up Battle for Control of Eastern Ukraine

18 April 2022, Ukraine, Mykolaiv: Ukrainian soldiers inspect a destroyed house after Russian shelling above the village of Shevchenko, near the front line during fighting between Russian and Ukrainian armies in Mykolaiv Oblast. (dpa)
18 April 2022, Ukraine, Mykolaiv: Ukrainian soldiers inspect a destroyed house after Russian shelling above the village of Shevchenko, near the front line during fighting between Russian and Ukrainian armies in Mykolaiv Oblast. (dpa)

Russia ratcheted up its battle for control of Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland, intensifying assaults on cities and towns along a front hundreds of miles long in what officials on both sides described as a new phase of the war.

After a Russian push to the capital failed to overrun the city, the Kremlin declared that its main goal was the capture of the eastern Donbas region. If successful, that offensive would give President Vladimir Putin a vital piece of Ukraine and a badly needed victory that he could present to the Russian people amid the war’s mounting casualties and the economic hardship caused by the West’s sanctions.

In recent weeks, Russian forces that withdrew from Kyiv have regrouped in preparation for an all-out offensive in the Donbas, where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces for the past eight years and have declared two independent republics that have been recognized by Russia.

While Ukraine’s president and other officials said the offensive had started, observers noted that it was just the beginning of a new massive onslaught.

Ukraine’s military said early Tuesday that a "new phase of war” began a day earlier when "the occupiers made an attempt to break through our defenses along nearly the entire frontline.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview that "another phase of this operation is starting now.”

In what appeared to be an intensification of attacks, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said that 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. Russian artillery hit 1,260 Ukrainian military facilities and 1,214 troops concentrations over the last 24 hours. The claims could not be independently verified.

The Pentagon cast the stepped-up campaign as "shaping operations” setting the stage for a broader offensive in the mostly Russian-speaking Donbas region.

The United States believes that Russian forces are "continuing to set the conditions for what they believe will be eventual success on the ground by putting in more forces, putting in more enablers, putting in more command and control capability for operations yet to come,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Monday.

The assaults began that day along a boomerang-shaped front that stretches more than 300 miles (480 kilometers) from northeastern Ukraine to the country's southeast.

Russia said it struck several areas with missiles, including the northeastern city of Kharkiv as well as as areas around Zaporizhzhia and Dnipro west of the Donbas. Five civilians were killed in a barrage on Kharkiv, Gov. Oleh Synyehubov said Tuesday.

Moscow's troops seized control of one town in the Donbas on Monday, according to Luhansk Gov. Serhiy Haidai. The breakthrough in Kreminna takes the Russians one small step closer to their apparent goal of encircling Ukrainian troops in the region by advancing on them from the north and south and squeezing them against territory held by Moscow's troops to the east.

Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s national security council, said that the defensive line had held elsewhere.

The capture of Kreminna also takes the Russians closer to the city of Slovyansk, whose loss by the Russia-backed separatists represented a humiliating setback for Moscow in the early stages of the separatist conflict in 2014.

Key to the campaign to take the east is the capture of Mariupol, a port city in the region that the Russians have besieged since the early days of the war.

Shelling continued there and Russia issued a fresh ultimatum Tuesday to the Ukrainian troops holed up there to surrender, saying those who come out will "keep their lives.” The Ukrainians have ignored previous such offers.

Securing Mariupol would free Russian troops up to move elsewhere in the Donbas, deprive Ukraine of a vital port, and complete a land bridge between Russia and the Crimean Peninsula, seized from Ukraine from 2014.

Denys Prokopenko, commander of the Azov Regiment of the Ukrainian National Guard that is guarding the last known Ukrainian pocket of resistance in Mariupol, said in a video message that Russia had begun dropping bunker-buster bombs on the Azovstal steel plant where the regiment was holding out.

Civilians are also believed to be sheltering at the plant, which covers the territory of about 11 square kilometers (over 4 square miles).

On Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video address that a "significant part of the entire Russian army" is now concentrated on the battle for the Donbas.

"No matter how many Russian troops are driven there, we will fight,” Zelenskyy vowed. "We will defend ourselves.”



NATO and Ukraine to Hold Emergency Talks after Russia’s Attack with New Hypersonic Missile

A missile shrapnel lies on the grass in front of damaged rehabilitation center for people with disabilities, following a Russian attack in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, on November 22, 2024. (AFP)
A missile shrapnel lies on the grass in front of damaged rehabilitation center for people with disabilities, following a Russian attack in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, on November 22, 2024. (AFP)
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NATO and Ukraine to Hold Emergency Talks after Russia’s Attack with New Hypersonic Missile

A missile shrapnel lies on the grass in front of damaged rehabilitation center for people with disabilities, following a Russian attack in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, on November 22, 2024. (AFP)
A missile shrapnel lies on the grass in front of damaged rehabilitation center for people with disabilities, following a Russian attack in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, on November 22, 2024. (AFP)

NATO and Ukraine will hold emergency talks Tuesday after Russia attacked a central city with an experimental, hypersonic ballistic missile that escalated the nearly 33-month-old war.

The conflict is “entering a decisive phase,” Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Friday, and “taking on very dramatic dimensions.”

Ukraine’s parliament canceled a session as security was tightened following Thursday's Russian strike on a military facility in the city of Dnipro.

In a stark warning to the West, President Vladimir Putin said in a nationally televised speech to his nation that the attack with the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile was retaliation for Kyiv’s use of US and British longer-range missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory.

Putin said Western air defense systems would be powerless to stop the new missile.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov kept up Russia's bellicose tone on Friday, blaming “the reckless decisions and actions of Western countries” in supplying weapons to Ukraine to strike Russia.

"The Russian side has clearly demonstrated its capabilities, and the contours of further retaliatory actions in the event that our concerns were not taken into account have also been quite clearly outlined," he said.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, widely seen as having the warmest relations with the Kremlin in the European Union, echoed Moscow's talking points, suggesting the use of US-supplied weapons in Ukraine likely requires direct American involvement.

“These are rockets that are fired and then guided to a target via an electronic system, which requires the world’s most advanced technology and satellite communications capability,” Orban said on state radio. “There is a strong assumption ... that these missiles cannot be guided without the assistance of American personnel.”

Orban cautioned against underestimating Russia’s responses, emphasizing that the country’s recent modifications to its nuclear deployment doctrine should not be dismissed as a “bluff.” “It’s not a trick... there will be consequences,” he said.

Separately in Kyiv, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský called Thursday's missile strike an “escalatory step and an attempt of the Russian dictator to scare the population of Ukraine and to scare the population of Europe.”

At a news conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, Lipavský also expressed his full support for delivering the necessary additional air defense systems to protect Ukrainian civilians from the “heinous attacks.”

He underlined that the Czech Republic will impose no limits on the use of its weapons and equipment given to Ukraine.

Three lawmakers from Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, confirmed that Friday's previously scheduled session was called off due to the ongoing threat of Russian missiles targeting government buildings in central Kyiv.

In addition, there also was a recommendation to limit the work of all commercial offices and nongovernmental organizations "in that perimeter, and local residents were warned of the increased threat,” said lawmaker Mykyta Poturaiev, who added this is not the first time such a threat has been received.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office continued to work in compliance with standard security measures, a spokesperson said.

Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate said the Oreshnik missile, whose name in Russian means “hazelnut tree,” was fired from the Kapustin Yar 4th Missile Test Range in Russia’s Astrakhan region, and flew 15 minutes before striking Dnipro. The missile had six nonnuclear warheads each carrying six submunitions and reached a spoeed of Mach 11, it said.

Test launches of a similar missile were conducted in October 2023 and June 2024, the directorate said. The Pentagon confirmed the missile was a new, experimental type of intermediate-range missile based on its RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile.

Thursday's attack struck the Pivdenmash plant that built ICBMs when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union. The military facility is located about 4 miles (6 1/2 kilometers) southwest of the center of Dnipro, a city of about 1 million that is Ukraine’s fourth-largest and a key hub for military supplies and humanitarian aid, and is home to one of the country’s largest hospitals for treating wounded soldiers from the front before their transfer to Kyiv or abroad.

The stricken area was cordoned off and out of public view. With no fatalities reported from the attack, Dnipro residents resorted to dark humor on social media, mostly focused on the missile’s name, Oreshnik.

Elsewhere in Ukraine, Russia struck a residential district of Sumy overnight with Iranian-designed Shahed drones, killing two people and injuring 13, the regional administration said..

Ukraine’s Suspilne media, quoting Sumy regional head Volodymyr Artiukh, said the drones were stuffed with shrapnel elements. “These weapons are used to destroy people, not to destroy objects,” said Artiukh, according to Suspilne.