Russia may shift war aims; 300 reported dead in theater
KYIV, people Russian on Ukrainian a Mariupol UKRAINE were airstrike authorities killed » theater About last in week said that 300 the was Friday it attack signal the Meanwhile, being war’s an on in important what civilians used deadliest in would as what a yet. narrowing shelter, known make could the appear least offensive U.S. of for Moscow’s to said now, aimed have Russian their at halted, war capturing ground forces aims, at concentrating control the in capital, the of country’s the more Kyiv, Donbas on and southeast gaining are region seemed Col.-Gen — a to shift confirm. Sergei the Rudskoi, Kremlin deputy general objective chief staff, of the of said first the the Russian stage main of the Ukraine’s operation fighting — reducing capacity — has “generally allowing been Russian accomplished,” main forces goal, liberation to focus on of Donbas.” “the The seeming shift in Moscow’s — stated after weeks military in which objectives Russian President Vladimir
Putin denied Ukraine’s right to exist as a sovereign country and appeared bent on capturing many of its cities and toppling its government — could point to a possible exit strategy for Russia, which has run into fiercer resistance and suffered heavier losses than anticipated.
In fact, the Russians are no longer in full control of Kherson, the first major city to fall to Moscow’s forces, a senior U.S. defense official said. The official said the southern city is being contested by the Ukrainians in heavy fighting. The Kremlin denied it had lost full control. The Donbas is the largely Russian-speaking eastern part of the country where Russian-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces since 2014 and where many residents desire close ties to Moscow. Its coal-mining and industrial Donetsk and Luhansk regions are recognized by Russia as independent. In Mariupol, the bloodshed at the theater fueled allegations Moscow is committing war crimes by killing civilians, whether deliberately or by indiscriminate fire. For days, the government in the besieged and ruined port city was unable to give a casualty count for the March 16 bombardment of the grand, columned Mariupol Drama Theater, where hundreds of people were said to be taking cover, the word “CHILDREN” printed in Russian in huge white letters on the ground outside to ward off aerial attack. In announcing the death toll on its Telegram channel Friday, the city government cited eyewitnesses. But it was not immediately clear how witnesses arrived at *the figure or whether emergency workers had finished excavating the ruins.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said the theater bombing was an “absolute shock, particularly given the fact that it was so clearly a civilian target.” He said it showed “a brazen disregard for the lives of innocent people.”
The Ukrainian Parliament’s human rights commissioner said soon after the attack that more than 1,300 people had taken shelter in the theater, many of them because their homes had been destroyed. The building had a basement bomb shelter, and some survivors did emerge from the rubble after the attack.
“This is a barbaric war, and according to international conventions, deliberate attacks on civilians are war crimes,” said Mircea Geoana, NATO’s deputy-secretary general.
He said Putin’s efforts to break Ukraine’s will to resist are having the opposite effect: “What he’s getting in response is an even more determined Ukrainian army and an ever more united West in supporting Ukraine.”