Ukrainian defenders dig while Russia is building more firepower
Questions remain about the effectiveness of Russia’s weakened and demoralized forces.
Ukrainian forces dug up while Russia opened more firepower on Sunday and tapped a decorated general to take centralized control of the war ahead of a potentially decisive showdown in eastern Ukraine that could begin within days.
Experts said the next phase of the fight could begin with a full-scale offensive. The outcome could set the course of the conflict, which has flattened cities, killed countless thousands and left Moscow economically and politically isolated.
Also Read:- British Prime Minister Boris Johnson meets with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv during the Russian invasion: Report 10Apr 2022
Questions remain about Russia’s ability to weaken and demoralize forces after their advance on the capital, Kyiv, was repelled by determined Ukrainian defenders. Britain’s Defense Ministry said on Sunday that the Russian military was trying to cover rising casualties by recalling soldiers who had retired over the past decade.
Meanwhile, a senior US official said Russia appointed one of its most experienced military chiefs, General Alexander Dvornikov, to oversee the invasion. The officer was not identified and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Until now, Russia had no central combat commander on the ground.
The new battlefield leadership comes as Russian forces are expected to make a big, focused push to expand control of the country’s east. Russia-backed separatists have fought Ukrainian forces in the eastern Donbass region since 2014 and declared some areas independent.
Dvornikov, 60, rose to prominence as the head of Russian forces deployed to Syria in 2015 to sideline President Bashar Assad’s regime amid the country’s devastating civil war. US officials say he has a record of brutality against civilians in Syria and other war theaters.
Also Read:- 39 killed and over 100 injured in rocket attack on Eastern Ukraine railway station: Report 08Apr 2022
Russian officials generally do not confirm such appointments and have said nothing about a new role for Dvornikov, who received the Hero of Russia Medal, one of the country’s highest awards, from President Vladimir Putin in 2016.
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan downplayed the importance of the appointment while speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
“What we learned in the first several weeks of this war is that Ukraine will never be subject to Russia,” Sullivan said. “It doesn’t matter which general President Putin tries to appoint.”
Western military analysts say Russia’s attack was focused on a sickle-shaped arc in eastern Ukraine from Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city in the north to Kherson in the south.
Collapsed efforts may have reduced the Russian problem, earlier in the war, to widely spreading its offensive over a much larger geographical area.
Also Read:- Russia’s offensive in eastern Ukraine intensifies; High-precision ‘Onyx’ missiles launched in Donbass
“Just looking at it on a map, you can see that they’re going to be able to bring a lot of power in a much more focused fashion,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Friday.
Recently released Maxar Technologies satellite imagery showed an 8-mile (13-kilometer) convoy of military vehicles headed south through Ukraine to the Donbass, recalling images of a convoy that was trying to take over by Russia. Been on the road to Kyiv for weeks before committing. capital.
The Ukrainian military command said on Sunday, Russian forces opened fire on government-controlled Kharkiv and sent reinforcements to Izium in the southeast to break through Ukraine’s defences. The Russians also continued their siege of Mariupol, a major southern port that has been attacked and besieged for about 1.5 months.
Also Read:- Zelensky tells the UN about the horrors of the Russian invasion: Report 06Apr 2022
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, Major General Igor Konashenkov, said Russia’s military used air-launched missiles to hit Ukraine’s S-300 air-defense missile systems in the southern Mykolaiv region and at an air base in Chuhuyev. Kharkiv.
Konashenkov said Russian cruise missiles fired from the sea destroyed the headquarters of a Ukrainian military unit located to the west in the Dnipro region. Neither the Ukrainian nor the Russian military claims could be independently verified.
According to the regional governor, the airport of Dnipro, Ukraine’s fourth-largest city, was also hit twice on Sunday by missiles.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky appealed for stronger military and political support from the West, including NATO members who have given Ukraine weapons and military equipment, but declined some requests for fear of engaging in war.
Also Read:- Russian soldiers raped minors, marked the bodies of women, claims Ukrainian MP: Report 04Apr 2022
In a late-night video message, Zelensky argued that Russia’s aggression was “not intended to be limited to Ukraine alone.” “The whole European project is one goal,” he said.
“That is why it is not the moral duty of all democracies, all powers of Europe, to support Ukraine’s desire for peace,” Zelensky said. “Indeed, this is the strategy of defense for every civilized state.”
Ukrainian authorities have accused the Russian military of committing war crimes against civilians, including airstrikes on hospitals, a missile Etu
Ukrainian defenders dig while Russia is building more firepower
Also Read:- More than 400 bodies found in cities near Kyiv, Zelensky furious at Russia, said – robbers in the guise of army
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by News East India staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
