Rail network hit to slow supply lines

Russia has unleashed a string of attacks against Ukrainian rail and fuel facilities, striking crucial infrastructure far from the front line of its eastern offensive.

As both sides in the war brace for what could be a grinding battle of attrition in the country’s eastern industrial heartland, top US officials pledged more help to Ukraine.

In a visit to Kyiv to meet President Volodymyr Zelensky, the American secretaries of state and defence said Washington had approved a £129million sale of ammunition to fit Ukraine’s Soviet-era weapons as well as £235million in financing to buy more supplies.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken said after the meeting: “When it comes to Russia’s war aims, Russia is failing. Ukraine is succeeding.”

Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba welcomed the American support but said that “as long as Russian soldiers put a foot on Ukrainian soil, nothing is enough”.

Mr Kuleba warned that if western powers want Ukraine to win the war and “stop Putin in Ukraine and not to allow him to go further, deeper into Europe”, then countries need to speed up the delivery of the weapons requested by Ukraine.

Russian president Vladimir Putin accused the US and its allies of trying to “split Russian society and to destroy Russia from within”.

When Russia invaded on February 24, its apparent goal was the lightning capture of Kyiv and perhaps the toppling of its government.

Moscow now says its goal is the capture of the mostly Russian-speaking Donbas region in the east.

While both sides said the campaign in the east is under way, Russia has yet to mount an all-out ground offensive and has not achieved any major breakthroughs.

Ukrainian troops holed up in a steel plant in the strategic city of Mariupol are tying down Russian forces.

Over the weekend, Russian forces launched fresh air strikes on the plant in a bid to dislodge the estimated 2,000 fighters.

Some 1,000 civilians are also sheltering in the steelworks, and the Russian military pledged to open a humanitarian corridor for them to leave.

Deputy Ukrainian prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on the Telegram messaging app that her country does not consider the route safe and added that Russia had breached agreements on similar evacuation routes before. She called on the United Nations to oversee an evacuation.

Yesterday, Russia focused its firepower behind the front lines, in an apparent bid to slow the movement of Ukrainian supplies towards the east and disrupt the flow of fuel needed by the country’s forces.

Oleksandr Kamyshin, head of the state-run Ukrainian Railways, said five railway facilities in central and western Ukraine were hit. Ukrainian authorities said that at least five people were killed by Russian strikes in the central region of Vynnytsia.

Russia also destroyed an oil refinery in Kremenchuk in central Ukraine, along with fuel depots there.

Meanwhile, a major fire erupted at a Russian oil refinery in Bryansk, about 60 miles from the Ukrainian border.

Russia’s emergencies ministry gave no cause for the blaze at the depoot which is owned by a subsidiary of the Russian state company Transneft.

RED SKY AT NIGHT: Oil storage facilities in flames in Bryansk, Russia, at a depot 60 miles from the Ukrainian border.