Russian forces hit pause as they rebuild combat power
‘‘Everybody should know that largely speaking, we haven’t even yet started anything in earnest.’’ President Vladimir Putin
Foreign analysts say Russia may be temporarily easing its offensive in eastern Ukraine as the Russian military attempts to reassemble its forces for what it hopes could prove a decisive new assault on its neighbour.
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned menacingly yesterday that his forces ‘‘haven’t even started’’ to fight.
Russian forces made no claimed or assessed territorial gains in Ukraine on Thursday ‘‘for the first time in 133 days of war’’, according to the Institute for the Study of War. The Washington-based think tank suggested Moscow may be taking an ‘‘operational pause’’, but said that does not entail ‘‘the complete cessation of active hostilities’’.
‘‘Russian forces will likely confine themselves to relatively small-scale offensive actions as they attempt to set conditions for more significant offensive operations’’ and rebuild the necessary combat power, the institute said.
Russia’s Defence Ministry seemed to confirm that assessment, saying in a statement that Russian soldiers had been given time to rest.
‘‘The units that performed combat missions . . . are taking measures to recover their combat capabilities. The servicemen are given the opportunity to rest, receive letters and parcels from home,’’ read the statement, quoted by Russian state news agency Tass.
Putin warned Kyiv it should quickly accept Moscow’s terms to end the fighting or brace for the worst.
‘‘Everybody should know that largely speaking, we haven’t even yet started anything in earnest,’’ he said in a menacing note.
Shelling continued in Ukraine’s east, with the mayor of one Donetsk region city saying it was hit by the most powerful strike since the war began.
Kramatorsk Mayor Oleksandr Gorchenko said a Russian missile hit in the vicinity of the local government buildings shortly after noon. The city has been the centre of the Donetsk regional government since 2014, when the city of Donetsk was taken over by Kremlin-backed separatists.
Earlier yesterday, regional officials said at least one person was killed and six more were injured in the strike.
Volodymyr, 66, a resident who declined to provide his full name, sat in his overturned apartment, covered in blood.
‘‘I was just sitting and drinking tea, and then there was an explosion,’’ he told the Associated Press. ‘‘You can see the result of it.’’
Asked if he felt safe staying in his apartment building block, he responded: ‘‘Is it safe right now anywhere in Ukraine? It all just happened in one moment, and that was it.’’
In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s secondlargest city, firefighters were able to put out multiple fires caused by Russian shelling of a residential area, the regional emergency services reported. It said fires had engulfed private homes, garages, cars and trucks as well as parts of an apartment in a nine-storey apartment block.
Earlier, regional police said three people died and five were injured after the Nemyshlyanskii neighbourhood in Kharkiv was blasted from multiple-launch rocket systems. The Kharkiv region, which lies along the border with Russia, comes under daily shelling.
In Donetsk, 10 cities and villages came under shelling, and 35 buildings were destroyed, including a school, a vocational college and a hospital, officials said.
Donetsk is part of the Donbas, a mostly Russian-speaking industrial area where Ukraine’s most experienced soldiers are concentrated. Pro-Russian separatists have fought Ukrainian forces and controlled much of the Donbas for eight years. Putin recognised the independence of two selfproclaimed republics there just before Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.
Putin on Tuesday claimed victory in Luhansk, the other Donbas province, after Ukrainian forces withdrew from the last city they controlled there. The governor of Luhansk, Serhiy Haidai, denied on Thursday that the Russians had completely captured the province.