The last:
- Zelensky called the Russian army “barbaric” and “inhuman.”
- Russian forces are attacking a wide stretch of the Eastern Front, Ukraine says.
- Ukrainian soldiers are hiding in the Mariupol steel plant in the last big pocket of resistance in the city.
- Russian troops are taking control of the town of Kremina in Donbass, the governor said.
- Canada has announced additional sanctions, including against Putin’s daughters.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the Russian military is throwing everything it has at Ukraine, with most of its fighting forces now concentrated in the country and across its Russian border.
“They have taken out almost everyone and everything that is capable of fighting us against Ukraine,” he said in his evening video address to the nation.
And despite Russia’s claims that it only hits military targets, Zelensky said the army continues to attack residential areas and kill civilians.
“The Russian army in this war is forever recorded in world history as the most barbaric and inhuman army in the world,” said the Ukrainian president.
A man tries to put out a fire after a Russian bombing of a residential neighborhood in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Tuesday. (Felipe Dana / Associated Press)
Zelensky’s latest comments came hours after Russia redoubled its attacks on cities and towns along a boomerang-shaped front hundreds of kilometers long and dropped more troops on Tuesday in a potentially key battle to control Ukraine’s eastern industrial heart. with coal mines and factories.
After Russian pressure on the capital failed to take the city, the Kremlin said its main goal was to take over the eastern region of Donbass, where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces for eight years.
If successful, this offensive will give President Vladimir Putin a vital part of Ukraine and a much-needed victory that he could present to the Russian people amid growing casualties in the war and economic hardships caused by Western sanctions following Russia’s invasion. on February 24th.
It will also effectively divide Ukraine in two and deprive it of the main industrial assets concentrated in the east, including coal mines, metallurgical plants and machine-building plants.
A woman walks to a damaged building after a Russian bombing in Kharkov, Ukraine, on Tuesday. (Felipe Dana / Associated Press)
The eastern cities of Kharkiv and Kramatorsk came under deadly attack on Tuesday, and Russia also said it had hit areas around Zaporozhye and the Dnieper west of Donbass with missiles.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview that “another phase of this operation is now beginning.”
The President of Ukraine said that a huge number of Russian troops were involved in the offensive, although some observers noted that there has been an escalation for some time.
WATCH Russia may have dominance in Donbass, says US military expert:
Russia has an early advantage in the fight against Donbass, says a military expert
Daniel Davis, a retired U.S. lieutenant colonel, says Russia’s firepower and maneuverability seem to be dominating Donbass. 7:44
Justin Crump, a former British tank commander, said the Ukrainian comments could be partly an attempt to persuade the Allies to send more weapons.
“What they’re trying to do by positioning this, I think, is … focus people’s minds and efforts by saying, ‘Look, the conflict started in Donbass,'” Crump of Sibylline, a strategic consulting firm, said. “This puts some pressure on NATO and EU suppliers to say, ‘Guys, we’re starting to fight now. We need that now. “
European and American weapons are key to strengthening Ukraine’s defense by helping a country that is poorly armed to retain Russian forces. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte told Zelensky on the phone on Tuesday that the Netherlands would send “heavier materials” to Ukraine, including armored vehicles.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says Germany will continue to allow arms supplies to Ukraine, one of the options being systems from Eastern European countries that would be easily and quickly usable.
Scholz is facing growing pressure from his own ruling coalition and the main opposition party to supply heavy weapons such as German Leopard tanks.
The Russians claim a key city in Donbass
The spokesman for the Russian Ministry of Defense, Major General. Igor Konashenkov said air-to-air missiles destroyed 13 Ukrainian servicemen and weapons sites, while the air force struck 60 other Ukrainian military facilities, including storage facilities for missile warheads.
Russian artillery has hit 1,260 Ukrainian military sites and concentrations of 1,214 soldiers in the past 24 hours, Konashenkov said on Tuesday. Allegations cannot be verified independently.
WATCH The mayor of Kyiv warns residents not to return yet amid new attacks:
Kyiv mayor warns residents not to return yet amid new Russian air strikes
Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that despite the withdrawal of Russian troops from the Kyiv region, the threat of air strikes is great. 2:37
The attacks began on Monday on a front that stretches more than 480 kilometers from northeastern Ukraine to the country’s southeast.
A European official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss military assessments, said Russia has between 10,000 and 20,000 foreign fighters in Donbas. They are a mix of mercenaries from the Russian private group Wagner and Russian proxy fighters from Syria and Libya, according to the official.
Associated Press reporters in Kharkov reported that at least four people were killed and three wounded in a Russian attack on a residential area of the city, which is close to the front line and is facing repeated shelling. The attack came as residents tried to maintain a sense of normalcy on Tuesday, with municipal workers planting spring flowers in public places.
An explosion also shook the eastern city of Kramatorsk on Tuesday, killing at least one person and injuring three, according to local journalists.
An unspecified number of people were injured in Bashtanka when Russian forces shelled the hospital, destroying the emergency department and the dialysis zone, the head of the regional council Anna Zamazeeva announced on Facebook.
Vera Ptitsina, 63, stands with her 45-year-old daughter, Olena, as she mourns her husband’s grave during his funeral in Bucha, a Kyiv suburb, on Tuesday. Yuri Ptitsin, 74, died of lack of medical care during the month-long Russian occupation of the city. (Emilio Morenati / Associated Press) A Ukrainian soldier inspects a Russian tank after recent battles near the village of Moshchun, near Kyiv, Ukraine, on Tuesday. (Ephraim Lukacki / Associated Press)
Witness accounts and official reports give a broad picture of the extent of Russia’s progress. But independent reporting in parts of Donbass held by Russian forces and separatists is severely limited, making it difficult to understand what is happening in many parts of the world.
Moscow troops took control of a city in Donbass on Monday, according to Luhansk Governor Sergei Haidai. Alexei Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security Council, said the defensive line had remained elsewhere.
The breakthrough in Kremina, a city of 18,000, takes the Russians one step closer to their apparent goal of encircling Ukrainian troops in the region.
Retired British General Richard Barnes told the BBC that “in this particular battle, the Russians will be approaching the Ukrainians from the east, but also from the north and south, to try to stand behind them, and so it’s more complicated. military problem for the Ukrainians “.
Locals pass a tank destroyed during heavy fighting in an area controlled by Russian-backed separatist forces in Mariupol on Tuesday. (Alexei Alexandrov / Associated Press)
Bombed Mariupol steel production
The key to the campaign to capture the east is the capture of Mariupol, a port city in the region that the Russians have besieged since the first days of the war.
Several thousand Ukrainian soldiers, according to Russians, were sheltered in a sprawling steel plant, what was thought to be the last big pocket of resistance in the ruined city.
Denis Prokopenko, commander of the Azov Regiment, a far-right group that is now part of Ukraine’s National Guard guarding the plant, said in a video message that Russia had started dropping bombs to destroy bunkers on the site.
It is also believed that civilians are sheltered in the plant, which covers an area of about 11 square kilometers.
An adviser to the Ukrainian president also said on Tuesday that Russia was hitting the Azovstal steel plant with bombs to destroy bunkers.
“The world is watching the killing of children online and is silent,” adviser Mikhail Podoliak wrote on Twitter.
People are passing a residential building that was severely damaged during Russia’s invasion of the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine, on Monday. (Alexander Ermochenko / Reuters)
On Tuesday, Russia issued a new ultimatum to Ukrainian defenders to surrender, saying those leaving would “save their lives” and said a ceasefire was announced in the area so the fighters could leave the Azovstal steel plant. Ukrainians ignored previous similar proposals and there was no immediate confirmation that a ceasefire had taken place.
In an evening address to the nation, Zelensky said the situation in Mariupol remained unchanged and that the Russian military was blocking attempts to create a humanitarian corridor outside the city and “rescue people”.
“It’s the hardest thing possible,” he said.
Kremlin-backed Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, whose forces took part in the fighting in Mariupol, said in a statement that Russian forces would eradicate Ukrainian resistance within hours and take full control of the steel plant on Tuesday. Kadyrov is famous …
Add Comment