The Ukrainian War completes two months this Sunday (24) with no end in sight and renewed threats in the military, nuclear and geopolitical fields.
In recent days, Russia presided over by Vladimir Putin has intensified its offensive in the Donbass, a region in eastern Ukraine partly dominated by pro-Moscow separatists, and in its main target in the south of the country so far, Mariupol, again attacking the last point of contact. resistance in the strategic port city for the Kremlin.
The moves align with the goals that Russia has admitted to having for its “special military operation”, a euphemism used by Moscow to refer to the war: conquer all of Donbass, connect it with the already annexed Crimean peninsula and capture the south entirely. from Ukraine to the border with Moldova.
The statement on these goals was given on Friday (22) by General Rustam Minnekaiev, deputy commander of the Central Military District, to state agencies. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov declined to comment, and Ukraine responded, saying the statement belied claims that no territorial ambitions were at stake.
President Volodymyr Zelensky repeated his thesis that Putin intends to invade other countries: “We are the first in line. And who will come next?”, he said, in another of his traditional night speeches, on Friday.
If confirmed by the Kremlin, the new strategy of the Russian offensive could also, in practice, extrapolate the territory of Ukraine when reaching Transnistria, a separatist enclave in Moldova whose majority of the population is made up of ethnic Russians.
The small country’s foreign ministry summoned the Moscow ambassador to express concern about the general’s remarks. “The declaration is unfounded. Moldova is a neutral state, and this principle must be respected by all international actors, including the Russian Federation,” the body said in a statement. Moldova is demanding, like Kiev, membership of the European Union.
Attack on the Mariupol power plant
This Saturday (23), Russia resumed the attack on the last bastion of Ukrainian resistance in Mariupol, a steel complex where thousands of fighters and civilians are hiding. Two days earlier, Putin had declared victory in capturing the city and said his troops would not need to take the Azovstal plant.
But, according to Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksi Arestovitch, Moscow forces have again launched bombings and tried to invade the steel complex to “strangle the final resistance of the defenders of Mariupol”.
Arestovitch said Ukrainian troops were still holding out, “despite the very difficult situation”, and trying to counterattack. Putin and other Russian officials, meanwhile, have said that those who surrender peacefully will be spared by Moscow.
More than 1,000 civilians are hiding at the plant, according to Ukrainian officials. Russia, meanwhile, says Azovstal is home to at least 2,000 enemy military personnel.
Against this backdrop, Ukraine said it would make another attempt to evacuate civilians, while calls for a truce on the occasion of Orthodox Easter do not seem to have worked.
Besieged and bombed for weeks, Mariupol, where 400,000 people lived before the war, has become a city in ruins. Maxar Technologies, a US satellite company, in recent days released aerial images of newly dug mass graves on the outskirts of the municipality, in cities such as Manhuch and Vinohradne.
Kiev says tens of thousands of civilians have died and there are still 100,000 residents there. The United Nations and the Red Cross say the number of civilians is in the thousands, but without a specific estimate. Zelensky even spoke of more than 200,000.
Another key point in the south of the country, the city of Odessa was again bombed after several days without being the target of a major attack. Two missiles hit a military installation and two residential buildings, the Ukrainian Armed Forces said.
The government said at least five people died in the attack and 18 were injured. “It is likely that the balance will be greater,” said the chief of staff of the Presidency, Andri Iermak. According to him, among the dead is a three-month-old baby.
“The sole purpose of Russian missile attacks on Odessa is terror,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba wrote on Twitter. Russia continues to deny targeting civilians.
According to British military intelligence, Russian forces did not advance much from Friday to Saturday, but information released by both sides in the conflict indicates an increase in attacks on the Donbass region.
Russia said it shot down a fighter jet and destroyed three enemy helicopters at an airfield in Kharkiv, a city heavily bombed in the northwest for weeks.
The mayor of Kharkiv said Russian forces had carried out more than 50 artillery or rocket attacks in the last day, killing two people and wounding 19, and intense fighting continued in nearby Izium.
Sergi Gaidai, governor of Lugansk, said the Russian offensive had intensified across the province and that Ukrainian forces were pulling back in some places to preserve their units.
intercontinental missile
Meanwhile, Putin again drew the nuclear card after threatening the West, at the beginning of the invasion, with “consequences never seen in history”. On Wednesday (20), Moscow announced the first full test of the country’s new intercontinental missile for the use of nuclear warheads, the RS-28 Sarmat, considered the most powerful weapon of its type in the world.
On Saturday, the Kremlin said the superweapon will be deployed in Siberia until autumn — the season runs from September to December in the Northern Hemisphere. The goal, stated by Dmitri Rogozin, head of the Roscosmos space agency, is ambitious as Western experts say more tests will be needed before the missile can actually be deployed, ready for use.
Known in NATO, the western military alliance, as Satan-2, the Sarmat is capable, according to analysts, of delivering more than ten nuclear warheads to targets thousands of kilometers away, such as the United States and European countries.
Rogozin said in an interview with Russian state TV that the missiles would be deployed to a unit in the Krasnoyarsk region of Siberia, about 3,000 km east of Moscow, at the same point where Soviet-era missiles were located, something that would save “resources and time.” colossal”.
