Battle for Donbas begins
Russia has launched its longfeared, full-scale ground offensive to take control of Ukraine’s east, attacking along a broad front over 480km long, in opening a new and potentially climactic phase of the war.
‘‘The Russian troops have begun the battle for the Donbas,’’ Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced in a video address. He said a ‘‘significant part of the entire Russian army is now concentrated on this offensive’’.
The Donbas is Ukraine’s mostly Russian-speaking industrial heartland in the east, where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces for eight years and have declared two independent republics that have been recognised by Russia.
In recent weeks, the Kremlin declared the capture of the Donbas to be its main goal of the war, after its attempt to storm Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, failed. Russia began regrouping and reinforcing its ground troops in the east for an all-out offensive.
‘‘No matter how many Russian troops are driven there, we will fight,’’ Zelenskyy vowed. ‘‘We will defend ourselves. We will do it every day.’’
The offensive got under way after Russia bombarded the western city of Lviv and a multitude of other targets across Ukraine in what appeared to be an intensified bid to grind down the country’s defences.
A Ukrainian military official said street battles had begun in the city of Kreminna, and that evacuation was impossible.
Luhansk regional military administrator Serhiy Haidai said Russians had taken control of the city after ‘‘levelling everything to the ground’’, so his forces had retreated to regroup and keep on fighting.
Meanwhile, in the besieged southern port city of Mariupol, Denys Prokopenko, commander of the Azov Regiment of the Ukrainian National Guard holding out against Russian forces, said in a video message that Russia had begun dropping bunker-buster bombs on the Azovstal steel plant where the regiment was holed up.
The sprawling plant contains a warren of tunnels where both fighters and civilians are sheltering. It is believed to be the last major pocket of resistance in the
shattered city.
Military analysts say Russia was increasing its strikes on weapons factories, railways and other infrastructure ahead of its assault on the Donbas.
Moscow said its missiles had struck more than 20 military targets in eastern and central Ukraine in the past day, including ammunition depots, command headquarters, and groups of troops and vehicles.
A senior United State defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there were now 76 Russian combat units, known as battalion tactical groups, in eastern and southern Ukraine, up from 65 last week.
This could translate to around 50,000 to 60,000 troops, based on what the Pentagon said at the start of the war was the typical unit strength of 700 to 800 soldiers.
The capture of Mariupol, where Ukraine estimates 21,000 people have been killed, is seen as key, and not just because it would deprive Ukraine of a vital port and complete a land bridge between Russia and the Crimean Peninsula, seized from Ukraine from 2014.
Taking Mariupol could free up nearly a dozen battalion tactical groups for use elsewhere in the Donbas.