Russian soldiers massing for new offensive: Zelensky
Russian forces have abandoned their attempt to capture Kyiv, for now at least, but are redoubling their efforts in Ukraine’s east
LVIV: Ukrainian troops have repulsed several Russian assaults in the country’s east, British intelligence said on Monday, while President Volodymyr Zelensky said thousands of Russian soldiers were massing for a new offensive.
Russian forces were also pushing to establish control over the southern port city of Mariupol, the lynchpin between Russian-held areas to the west and east.
“There are tens of thousands of dead, but even despite this, the Russians are not stopping their offensive,” Zelensky told South Korea’s parliament by videolink.
Russian forces have abandoned their attempt to capture the capital Kyiv, for now at least, but are redoubling their efforts in Ukraine’s east. Britain’s defence ministry said Russian shelling continued in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
But Ukrainian forces had beaten back several assaults and destroyed Russian tanks, vehicles and artillery equipment, it said in its regular intelligence bulletin.
Powerful explosions rocked cities in the south and east and air raid sirens blared out across Ukraine early on Monday.
Zelensky kept up his campaign to generate international support and rally his countrymen, warning the coming week would be important.
“Russian troops will move to even larger operations in the east of our state. They may use even more missiles against us, even more air bombs. But we are preparing for their actions. We will answer,” he said in a late night video address.
Addressing South Korea’s parliament, he said Russia was concentrating tens of thousands of soldiers for the next offensive. He asked Seoul for any military aid it could provide.
Since Russia invaded, Zelensky has appealed to Western powers to provide more defence help, and to punish Moscow with tougher sanctions including embargoes on its energy exports.
‘Destroyed air defences before eastern push’
Russia claimed on Monday that it destroyed several Ukrainian air-defence systems in what appeared to be a renewed push to gain air superiority and take out weapons Kyiv has described as crucial ahead of an expected broad new offensive in the east.
In one strike, Moscow said it hit four S-300 launchers near the central city of Dnipro that had been provided by a European country it did not name. Slovakia gave Ukraine just such a system last week but denied it had been destroyed.
Ukrainian authorities accuse Russian forces of committing atrocities, including a massacre in the town of Bucha, outside Kyiv, airstrikes on hospitals and a missile attack that killed at least 57 people last week at a train station.
Meanwhile, the UN children’s agency said that nearly twothirds of all Ukrainian children have fled their homes in the six weeks since Russia’s invasion began, and the United Nations has verified that 142 children have been killed and 229
injured, though the actual numbers are likely much higher.
In other developments, the head of the separatist rebel government in Donetsk said Ukrainian forces have lost control of the port area of the besieged port city of Mariupol.
“Regarding the port of Mariupol, it is now under our control,” Denis Pushilin, president of the Donetsk People’s Republic, told Russian state television, according to Russian news agencies.
City official: 10,000-plus people killed in Mariupol
The mayor of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol tells The Associated Press that more than 10,000
civilians have died in the southeastern city since the Russian invasion in February. Mayor Vadym Boychenko told The Associated Press by telephone on Monday that corpses were “carpeted through the streets of our city” and that the death toll could be more than 20,000.
Austrian chancellor meets Russian prez
Attack on Ukraine
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said on Monday his meeting with Vladimir Putin did not leave him optimistic after he arrived seeking either an end to the conflict in Ukraine. “I generally have no optimistic impression that I can report to you from this conversation with President Putin. The offensive (in eastern Ukraine) is evidently being prepared on a massive scale,” Nehammer said.