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Daily Beast

The Embarrassing Truth Behind Putin’s War Failures

David Volodzko – April 22, 2022

The ongoing war in Syria was supposed to be a crucible for the modern Russian war machine, reforming its operational capabilities in preparation for future conflicts. Now that Russia is facing a test of those skills in Ukraine, it is turning into a disaster that they should have seen coming.

Moscow officially lost only 112 servicemen in six and a half years in Syria, compared to what it admits are 1,351 in a single month in Ukraine—the true numbers are likely to be far higher. And they have been forced to humiliatingly pull out around 40,000 troops from around Kyiv and Chernihiv having failed to make any significant progress in those regions and falling back to their old targets in eastern Ukraine. This raises the question of exactly what the Kremlin learned in Syria and, more importantly, what it should have learned but obviously has not.

Unlike Ukraine, Syria’s cities would never be part of the Russian federation and could therefore be flattened. Meanwhile, its non-white population was framed as foreign terrorists. Jabhat al-Nusra fighters, ISIS, and hundreds of children were portrayed to the voters back home as equally fair targets. By contrast, Ukrainians are largely seen by the Russian public as Russians themselves or, at the very least, close cousins. These factors freed Russia up to use Syria as merely a means to an end, or more specifically, two ends.

First, it used Syria as a proving ground to enhance command-and-control coordination. Like its Soviet predecessor, Russia’s military is an artillery force with armored battalions and the ground-based nature of its power is not as fast nor flexible as air or naval forces, making such coordination critical. Not to mention, if such command coordination is achieved, then as the Institute for the Study of War’s lead Russia analyst, Mason Clark, wrote in a 2021 report, it “will erode one of the United States and NATO’s key technological advantages.”

Second, Moscow declared a withdrawal from Syria in March 2016, then again in January 2017, and again in December of that year. This wasn’t just a feint to get its enemies to lower their guard, it also helped prevent Russia from being pulled too deeply into the war, thus minimizing losses. But just as importantly, it broke the war into a series of campaigns, allowing Moscow to rotate its forces through Syria, giving them ample combat experience. As Michael Kofman, director of the Russia studies program at the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), wrote in a 2020 report, “The entire Russian military must now serve [in Syria] in order to progress in rank.”

According William Alberque, the director of strategy, technology and arms control at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), some of the lessons that were not learned well enough include use of drones for artillery spotting, the danger of MANPADS on the contested battlefield, and the need for secure supply lines. Each of these factors have proven devastating for Russian forces in Ukraine.

But the biggest lessons, he said, have been how to detect, disrupt, and destroy small groups of fighters, the importance of the destruction not just of suppression of enemy air defenses, the use of secure comms, the value of precision-guided missiles, and the benefit of drawing the enemy out rather than engaging in urban warfare.

Albuquerque added that Russia learned a few more things in Syria. Namely, “how to destroy cities, terror tactics to make civilians flee, and the use of proxies as holding forces/cannon fodder.”

So what went wrong? For one thing, Russia is one of the most corrupt nations in the world, and by far the most corrupt major power. Ruling a mafia state has its advantages if you’re the Godfather, but it’s hard to know who to trust. Moscow recently purged 150 Federal Security Service (FSB) agents and sent Sergei Beseda, the head of the FSB’s 5th Service, which handles intelligence in Ukraine, to Lefortovo Prison, which was used under Stalin to conduct torture-based interrogations and mass executions. One theory says Beseda gave information to the CIA, but the official reason, which may very well be true, is that he lied to the state and stole funds meant for espionage activities in Ukraine. If true, this means Putin’s own spy chiefs not only let him bring a knife to a gun fight—they sold off the combat blade and bought a cheap butter spreader.

Another thing that led Putin astray was his own over-confidence. Since taking office in 2000, he has been involved in six wars—Chechnya, Georgia, the North Caucasus, Syria, the Central African Republic (CAR), and Ukraine.All but the last have been victorious. Syria and the CAR are ongoing, but the preservation of Bashar al-Assad’s regime and Faustin-Archange Touadera’s administration represent strategic wins. Putin thought he couldn’t lose.

Corruption and over-confidence prepared a path, but the biggest problem was Putin’s lack of experience ina war of this scale. Syria was a limited deployment in a far-off desert nation with minimal ground forces, Georgia only lasted 12 days, and Russia supported Touadera in the CAR from a distance with weapons, military instructors and Wagner mercenaries. Besides, even if Ukraine was the same game as Syria, and Russia could simply copy/paste its lessons, it still wouldn’t help since Moscow has apparently forgotten those lessons.

Russia did apply its Syria lessons in Ukraine—but it did so in 2014, when it used Crimea to train a rapid-reaction professional force. Now, however, Moscow is running four combined arms headquarters independently with only partial management at the defense center in Moscow. Why? Partly because it’s not just propaganda when Putin talks about a “special military operation.” He truly believed the rest of Ukraine, like Crimea, would offer little resistance and that the war would only last a matter of days.

In Syria, says military historian Peter Caddick-Adams, “They were not up against a peer adversary—in fact they have never been: Afghan, Chechnya, Georgia, Syria—unlike in Ukraine. Syria was predominantly an air war, with little threat, so Russian pilots treated it more as range practice, dumping munitions on preselected targets” he told The Daily Beast.

“Thus, what Russia did not learn from Syria was how to coordinate an all arms battle (artillery, armor, anti-tank, air defense, infantry, engineers, etc) at high tempo in complex terrain with aircraft of different types, helicopters, airborne and marine troops, with a well-balanced logistics and supply system—which is what they have needed for Ukraine.”

He added, “Russian communications are very lowbrow, and they are using unencrypted mobile phones in Ukraine, a bad habit picked up in Syria, where few opponents could understand Russian or had the technical competence to intercept.”

Simply put, Russia’s PhD in desert warfare is making for a poor career in Ukraine. Indeed, few things have revolutionized the modern Russian military like the war in Syria, but nothing will affect it quite like Ukraine. One might even call this Russia’s Vietnam moment. But one thing’s for certain, Russia looked at Ukraine and mistook a tiger for a cat. Now even if it decides to cut its losses and completely withdraw, it may not be so easy. As the old Chinese saying goes, when you’re riding a tiger, the hard part is getting off.

Business Insider

Russia is bombing the same targets moments apart to kill Ukrainian rescue crews that arrive to save survivors

Jake Epstein – April 22, 2022

• Russian forces are using a vicious bombing strategy to target rescue workers in Ukraine, according to multiple reports.
• Putin’s troops have fired on the same target moments apart, catching rescue crews helping survivors in the second attack.
• Russia was accused of carrying out these ‘double tap’ attacks during the Syrian Civil War.

Russian forces are bombing the same targets just moments apart to try and kill Ukrainian rescue crews that arrive to save survivors, according to multiple reports.

In two months of war, several ‘double-tap’ attacks have been reported in the bombarded northeast Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.

As recently as April 17, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported that it witnessed a double-tap attack in Kharkiv.

An ABC team was following a local Red Cross unit when Russian missiles hit a nearby building. A few minutes later, after the Red Cross, paramedics, and Ukrainian troops arrived at the scene to help survivors, a second missile attack hit the building.

Five civilians were killed that day, according to the ABC.

Another double-tap strike in Kharkiv was recorded last month, according to a recent report by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Russian forces on March 1 launched a cruise missile strike at a government building in the city’s Freedom Square. A few minutes later, when rescuers arrived to look for survivors, a second rocket hit the building.

At least ten people were killed and dozens more were injured in the attack, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called a “war crime” and “state terrorism.”

Despite the danger caused by double-tap strikes, firefighters in Kharkiv have routinely showed up to put out fires caused by strikes, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The double-tap strategy is not new to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s playbook, either.

Russia was accused multiple times in recent years of launching double-tap attacks during the Syrian Civil War, killing scores of civilians and rescuers.

The OSCE has said the vicious attacks are a violation of international law. It’s not immediately clear if double-tap strikes have occurred in other cities around Ukraine.

Business Insider

A Ukrainian woman who escaped Russia’s assault on Mariupol says troops were targeting apartment buildings ‘as if they were playing a computer game’

Rebecca Cohen – April 22, 2022

• A Ukrainian woman described her month hiding in a Mariupol basement during Russia’s assault.
• She said when she finally escaped, she witnessed Russians targeting apartment buildings.
• The journey to safety took 14 hours and she said she was strip-searched by Russian troops at each of the 16 checkpoints.

A Ukrainian woman who escaped Russia’s assault on Mariupol said that she witnessed Russian troops targeting apartment buildings “as if they were playing a computer game.”

Alina Beskrovna lived in a basement in Mariupol for a month as Russian troops destroyed her city outside. In a first-person account to UN News, she detailed how she went into hiding the morning of February 24 — the day Russia first invaded Ukraine — and stayed there until March 23.

She said people who could not get out within the first few days of the invasion were forced to stay because of active fighting in the streets.

“Those who tried to flee found themselves in a battlefield,” she said.

She described hope during the second week of the war when rumors spread on Telegram that there would be a humanitarian corridor opening up for civilians to go west to Manhush, but it turned out to be a false rumor, she said.

Mariupol, a port city on Ukraine’s southern coast, has been the scene of intense fighting for almost the entirety of Russia’s invasion.

The city’s mayor told the Associated Press last week that 21,000 people had been killed, and those who have fled described the city as “hell on earth.”

When Beskrovna finally decided to risk her life and flee from her hiding spot beneath the city, she said she witnessed Russian attacks with her own eyes.

“I saw with my own eyes how they aimed at apartment buildings, as if they were playing a computer game,” she recalled.

Beskrovna also said that resources quickly dwindled in the basement during her stay, and with Russia targeting the city’s electrical, water, and gas systems, they lost access to those necessities early on.

She also said communication was cut off very quickly. She said she does not know if her father is alive as they lost contact weeks ago.

“I knew why it was being done: To leave us completely helpless and hopeless, demoralized, and cut off from the outside world,” she said.

On March 23, she was able to board a train to Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, which took 14 hours. She said Russian troops strip-searched her and other passengers at all 16 checkpoints.

While she felt relief when she finally heard the Ukrainian language in Zaporizhzhia, she quickly realized that city wasn’t safe either.

“Despite feeling as though I was getting out of this black hole of destruction and death, Zaporizhzhia itself wasn’t safe; there were constant air raids,” she said. “But we had made it out of Mariupol and couldn’t believe we were alive.”

Reuters

Russia says it plans full control of Donbas and southern Ukraine

April 22, 2022

(Reuters) -Russia plans to take full control of Donbas and southern Ukraine during the second phase of what it calls its special military operation, the deputy commander of Russia’s central military district said on Friday, Russian news agencies reported.

The statement from Rustam Minnekayev, the deputy commander, is one of the most detailed about Moscow’s latest ambitions in Ukraine and suggests Russia does not plan to wind down its offensive there anytime soon.

Minnekayev did not mention them by name, but two major Ukrainian cities in southern Ukraine, Odesa and Mykolayiv, remain under Ukrainian control.

The Interfax and TASS news agencies cited him as saying that full control of southern Ukraine would improve Russian access to Moldova’s pro-Russian breakaway region of Transdniestria, which borders Ukraine and which Kyiv fears could be used as a launch pad for new attacks against it.

Kyiv earlier this month said that an airfield in the region was being prepared to receive aircraft and be used by Moscow to fly in Ukraine-bound troops, allegations Moldova’s defence ministry and authorities in Transdniestria denied.

“Control over the south of Ukraine is another way to Transdniestria, where there is also evidence that the Russian-speaking population is being oppressed,” the TASS news agency quoted Minnekayev as saying at a meeting in Russia’s central Sverdlovsk region.

Minnekayev was not cited as providing any evidence for or details of that alleged oppression.

He was quoted as saying that Russia planned to forge a land corridor between Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula which it annexed in 2014, and Donbas in eastern Ukraine.

The last Ukrainian fighters left in the port city of Mariupol in Donbas are holed up at a vast industrial facility which President Vladimir Putin has ordered to be blockaded rather than stormed. Mariupol sits between areas held by Russian separatists and Crimea. Its capture would allow Russia to link the two areas.

Minnekayev was cited as saying by Russia’s RIA news agency that media reports of Russian military setbacks were wide of the mark.

“The media are now talking a lot about some failures of our armed forces. But this is not the case. In the first days …the tactics of Ukrainian units were designed to ensure that, having pulled ahead, individual groups of Russian troops fell into pre prepared ambushes and suffered losses,” RIA cited him as saying.

“But the Russian armed forces very quickly adapted to this and changed tactics.”

According to RIA, he also said that daily missile and other strikes against Ukrainian forces meant Russia could do serious damage without losing troops.

Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24 in what it called an operation to degrade its southern neighbour’s military capabilities and root out people it called dangerous nationalists.

Ukrainian forces have mounted stiff resistance and the West has imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia in an effort to force it to withdraw its forces.

Daily Beast

Russian General Lets Slip a Secret Plan to Invade Another Country and Seize Ukraine’s Entire Coastline

Barbie Latza Nadeau – April 22, 2022

As Russian troops tighten their grip on the strategic port town of Mariupol, their strategy is finally becoming clear. Russian military commander Rustam Minnekaev now says the second phase of President Vladimir Putin’s “special operation” is focused on establishing a “land corridor” from the Donbas all the way to Moldova, which would cut off the rest of Ukraine from the sea.

“One of the tasks of the Russian army is to establish full control over the Donbas and southern Ukraine. This will provide a land corridor to the Crimea, as well as influence the vital objects of the Ukrainian economy,” Minnekaev said Friday at a meeting with the Union of Defense Industries, as reported by the Russian state-owned Interfax. “Control over the south of Ukraine is another way out to Transnistria, where there are also facts of oppression of the Russian-speaking population.” Transnistria is a separatist region of Moldova that has so far not been officially involved in the war despite hosting a Russian military base since the 1990s.

The general’s words suggest that Moldova’s sovereign borders would also come under threat from further Russian expansion. Phony efforts to protect Russian-speaking peoples have often foreshadowed Putin’s imperial invasions.

In reality, Russian speakers have been struck down in the hundreds in eastern Ukraine during the brutal invasion.

If successful, the strategy would include taking the port of the former seaside resort town of Odesa near the Moldovan border, which has suffered sporadic bombardments but no full-fledged invasion so far. Russia’s warship Moskva was hit about 75 miles off the coast of Odesa two weeks ago, before it sank en route to Crimea.

The refocusing of troops from northern Ukraine to the southern regions of the country has further choked Mariupol, where Ukrainian troops and civilians are holed up in a steel factory surrounded by Russian troops. Satellite imagery identified a growing number of graves outside the port city, where Ukrainian officials say up to 200 new graves have been dug since April 3.

While the Russian military has largely now left northern Ukraine alone save for sporadic missile strikes, fresh evidence of Russia’s ruthless tactics there in recent weeks continue to build a case for widespread war crimes. Andrii Nebytov, the head of police for Kyiv region, told CNN that they are examining 1,084 bodies found in the region outside Kyiv, including Bucha, for signs of torture. “These are civilians who had nothing to do with territorial defense or other military formations,” he said. “The vast majority—between 50 percent and 75 percent—are people killed by small arms, either a machine gun or a sniper rifle, depending on the location.”

Among the atrocities are evidence of widespread rape and sexual mutilation. The youngest victim who survived to tell her story is just 15, according to CNN. Several female bodies in mass graves show evidence of horrific crimes as well.

On Friday, the United Nations Human Rights Office described Russian atrocities against Ukrainians as a “horror story of violations against civilians” that shows no sign of abating.

Yahoo! News

What are howitzers? A look at the cannons in latest U.S. military aid to Ukraine

Niamh Cavanagh, Producer – April 22, 2022

LONDON — The first shipments of the Biden administration’s $800 million military aid package have arrived in Ukraine. Included among the first round of weapons are 18 155 mm howitzers, in addition to another 72 cannons that were announced this week. The howitzers heading to Ukraine will have a “significant” impact on Ukrainian firepower, according to a senior U.S. defense official, as the war with Russia enters its third month.

What is a howitzer?

A howitzer is a short cannon, placed at a steep angle of descent, used to fire at relatively high trajectories. The cannons can fire up to four rounds per minute, according to the U.S. Army. The weapons can be traced back to the 15th century when similar models were used by the Czechs and were known as “houfnice” cannons. Since World War I, the word “howitzer” has been used to describe these weapons.

How many are the U.S. sending to Ukraine?

The Department of Defense confirmed that 18 155 mm howitzers would be sent to Ukraine as part of the $800 million in military aid. In a second $800 million military aid package, announced by Biden on Thursday, an additional 72 howitzers, 72 tactical vehicles to tow the cannons and 144,000 rounds will be sent to Ukraine. The weapons are from U.S. Army and Marine Corps stocks.

A senior U.S. defense official told reporters on Wednesday that howitzer rounds, ammunition for the cannons, arrived in Europe on Tuesday to be sent to Ukraine. The official added that more were arriving on Wednesday and in the “coming days.”

Will Ukrainians be trained to use them?

Training of Ukrainian soldiers on how to use the howitzers — expected to last about a week — “has begun,” a defense official said this week. The official declined to say where the training was taking place, but said it was not in Ukraine. “This is training the trainers,” the official told the Washington Examiner. “It’s a smallish number of Ukrainians, a little bit more than 50.”

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told the Military Times on April 14 that there were no more plans to deploy U.S. troops to handle the training and instead, the trainees will return home to train other soldiers.

Why send howitzers?

The U.S. sent howitzers after Ukrainian officials asked for artillery. It is believed the cannons will play a significant role in Russia’s new battle for the Donbas region, which consists of flat, rolling plains, a defense official told Stars and Stripes. “We knew from talking to Ukrainians that artillery was going to be a critical need because of the way the terrain lays,” the official said. “And so we saw early on the Russians were moving artillery [for the battle in the Donbas].”

Meanwhile, the Pentagon spokesman reiterated on Thursday that sending the assistance has been in full “consultation” with Ukraine, and that the weapons sent by the U.S. “provide enough artillery now to equip five battalions for Ukraine for potential use in the Donbas.”

“I want to stress again that what we’re providing is done in full consultation with the Ukrainians and that they believe that these systems will be helpful to them in the fight,” Kirby said. “Where and when they employ them and how they employ them is, of course, up to them.”

Business Insider

Ukraine now has more tanks on the ground than Russia does, US defense official says

Sophia Ankel – April 22, 2022

• Western allies are sending heavier weaponry to Ukraine as Russia launches a new offensive.
• A US defense official told The Washington Post that Ukraine now has more tanks than Russia does.
• Russia is still feeling the losses it sustained earlier in the conflict, UK intelligence said.

Ukraine now has more tanks on the ground than Russia does, a senior US defense official told The Washington Post.

“Right now, the Ukrainians have more tanks in Ukraine than the Russians do … and they certainly have the purview to use them,” the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Post.

Insider was unable to independently verify this claim, and it is unclear exactly how many tanks both Russia and Ukraine have eight weeks into the war.

But the report comes as Western nations pledged to dispatch more heavy weaponry to Ukraine to help it defend itself against a renewed Russian offensive in the eastern Donbas region.

On Thursday, President Joe Biden announced an additional $800 million military aid package that will equip Ukraine with heavy artillery, howitzers, and tactical drones. The first such package, announced on April 13, included hundreds of armored vehicles and Mi-17 helicopters.

Earlier this month, a Pentagon official told The New York Times that the US will help with the transfer of Soviet-made tanks to the Donbas. The official declined to say how many tanks would be sent, or from which countries they would come.

European countries have also said they will provide heavy-duty weapons to Ukraine, including tanks.

In total, Ukraine’s allies have sent more than $3 billion in military aid since Russia’s invasion on February 24, the BBC reported.

On top of this, Russian troops are still losing military equipment.

Ukraine’s armed forces said Friday that Russian troops had lost more than 800 tanks and more than 2,000 combat armored machines since the start of its invasion on February 24.

An intelligence briefing published by the British Ministry of Defence on Friday said that “despite Russia’s renewed focus [in Donbas], they are still suffering from losses sustained earlier in the conflict.”

“In order to try and reconstitute their depleted forces, they have resorted to transiting inoperable equipment back to Russia for repair,” the briefing said.

Ukrainian President Zelenskyy has been asking allies for months to send over weapons. In a speech on Tuesday, he said Ukraine would have already beaten Russia if it had been given more war supplies.

UN rights chief sees ‘horror story’ of violations in Ukraine

April 22, 2022

FILE – Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, speaks to the media about the Tigray region of Ethiopia during a press conference at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Nov. 3, 2021. The United Nations’ human rights office on Friday, April 21, 2022 set out what it said is growing evidence of war crimes since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, declaring that international humanitarian law appears to have been “tossed aside.” Michelle Bachelet said that “our work to date has detailed a horror story of violations perpetrated against civilians.”(Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP, File)

BERLIN (AP) — The United Nations’ human rights office on Friday pointed to what it said is growing evidence of war crimes since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, declaring that humanitarian law appears to have been “tossed aside.”

Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said that “our work to date has detailed a horror story of violations perpetrated against civilians.”

Her office’s mission in Ukraine so far has verified 5,264 civilian casualties, including 2,345 deaths, since the war began on Feb. 24. It said that 92.3% of those were recorded in Ukrainian government-controlled territory. The office uses strict methodology and has long acknowledged that its confirmed figures are far short of the real numbers.

“The actual numbers are going to be much higher” as more details emerge from places such as Mariupol where there is intense fighting, Bachelet said.

“Over these eight weeks, international humanitarian law has not merely been ignored but seemingly tossed aside,” she added.

Her office said in a statement that “Russian armed forces have indiscriminately shelled and bombed populated areas, killing civilians and wrecking hospitals, schools and other civilian infrastructure — actions that may amount to war crimes.” It added that the U.N. mission also has “documented what appears to be the use of weapons with indiscriminate effects, causing civilian casualties and damage to civilian objects, by Ukrainian armed forces in the east of the country.”

Bachelet said that “the scale of summary executions of civilians in areas previously occupied by Russian forces” is emerging.

On April 9, U.N. human rights officers visiting Bucha documented the unlawful killing, including by summary execution, of some 50 civilians, her office said. The U.N. mission has received more than 300 allegations of killings of civilians in previously occupied towns in the Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv and Sumy regions.

Russian officials have denied that their soldiers killed any civilians in Bucha and other towns around Kyiv from which they retreated three weeks ago, and accused Ukraine of staging the atrocities.

The U.N. rights office said its mission also has recorded 114 attacks on medical facilities “although the actual figure is likely to be considerably higher.”

“We estimate that at least 3,000 civilians have died because they couldn’t get medical care and because of the stress on their health amid the hostilities,” Bachelet said. “This includes being forced by Russian armed forces to stay in basements or not being allowed to leave their homes for days or weeks.”

The U.N. mission so far has received 75 allegations of sexual violence against women, men, girls and boys by Russian soldiers, most in the Kyiv region. The human rights office said detention of civilians “has become a widespread practice” in areas controlled by Russian forces and affiliated groups, with 155 such cases reported so far.

It said it also received information about “alleged arbitrary and incommunicado detentions” by Ukrainian forces or people aligned with them. And it pointed to videos put out by both sides apparently showing the intimidation, interrogation, torture or killing of prisoners of war.

Reuters

Russia renews Mariupol attack, missiles hit Odesa, Ukraine says

Pavel Polityuk and Natalia Zinets – April 22, 2022

KYIV (Reuters) -Russia resumed its assault on the last Ukrainian defenders holed up in a giant steel works in Mariupol on Saturday, days after Moscow declared victory in the southern city and said its forces did not need to take the plant.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the country’s army was not ready to try to break through the siege of the port city. But he said America’s top diplomat, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin would visit Kyiv on Sunday and discuss the types of weapons Ukraine needs to battle the Russian invasion.

“As soon as we have (more weapons), as soon as there are enough of them, believe me, we will immediately retake this or that territory, which is temporarily occupied,” Zelenskiy told an evening news conference in the Kyiv metro.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has not confirmed any travel plans for Blinken and Austin. The State Department and Pentagon declined comment.

The attack on Mariupol, the biggest battle of the conflict, has raged for weeks as Russia seeks to capture a city seen as vital to its attempts to link the eastern Donbas region with Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula Moscow seized in 2014.

Moscow-backed separatists have held territory in the Donbas region for years.

In the Black Sea port city of Odesa, at least eight people were killed, Zelenskiy said. Two missiles struck a military facility and two residential buildings and two more were destroyed on Saturday, the Ukrainian armed forces said.

The death toll could not be independently verified. The last big strike on or near Odesa was in early April.

‘MISSILE TERROR’

Zelenskiy said Russia had already fired most of its missile arsenal at Ukraine.

“Of course, they still have missiles left. Of course, they can still continue the missile terror against our people,” he said in a video address later on Saturday.

“But what they have already done is a powerful enough argument for the world to finally recognize Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism and the Russian army as a terrorist organization,” he said.

Russia has denied targeting civilians in its “special military operation” that began on Feb. 24.

The Russian defence ministry said it used high-precision missiles to destroy a logistics terminal in Odesa containing weapons supplied by the United States and European nations.

It also said Russian forces had killed up to 200 Ukrainian troops and destroyed more than 30 vehicles on Saturday.

Russian General Rustam Minnekayev on Friday said Moscow wanted control of the whole of southern Ukraine, comments Ukraine said indicated Russia had wider goals than its declared aim of demilitarising and “denazifying” the country. Kyiv and the West call the invasion an unjustified war of aggression.

Russian forces have besieged and bombarded Mariupol for weeks, leaving in ruins a city usually home to more than 400,000 people. A new attempt to evacuate civilians failed on Saturday, an aide to Mariupol’s mayor said.

Russia’s defence ministry on Friday said Mariupol’s last fighters had been “securely blockaded” at the steel plant. On Thursday, President Vladimir Putin had declared the city “liberated,” declaring that troops would not storm Azovstal.

Oleksiy Arestovych, a political adviser to Zelenskiy, said Ukrainian troops in the steel complex were holding out and attempting counterattacks. More than 1,000 civilians are also in the plant, according to Ukrainian authorities.

‘I WANT TO SEE THE SUN’

The Azov battalion, a nationalist militia prominent in the defence of Mariupol, released a video it said showed women and children sheltering in the complex. Reuters could not independently verify where or when the video was shot.

One woman holding a young child said food was running out, while an unnamed boy in the video said he was desperate to get out after two months in the bunker.

“I want to see the sun because in here it’s dim, not like outside. When our houses are rebuilt we can live in peace. Let Ukraine win because Ukraine is our native home,” he said.

Ukraine estimates tens of thousands of civilians have been killed in Mariupol and says 100,000 civilians are still there. The United Nations and Red Cross say the civilian toll is at least in the thousands.

Russia’s current offensive is focused on the Donbas, which includes the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Luhansk Governor Serhiy Gaidai said Ukrainian forces were pulling back to preserve their units in the face of an intensifying barrage on all cities in the region.

Ukrainian forces fighting in Luhansk and Donetsk said in a Facebook post they had repelled 12 Russian attacks on Saturday, destroying four tanks and 16 other armoured vehicles as well as five artillery systems.

Reuters could not independently verify that statement.

Three people were killed and seven were wounded by Russian shelling in the eastern region of Kharkiv on Saturday, the region’s governor said.

The governor of a Russian border region said on Saturday that Ukraine had shelled a crossing point on Russia’s territory, causing a fire but no casualties. It was not immediately possible to confirm details or assess responsibility.

Russia said it had shot down a Ukrainian fighter jet and destroyed three Ukrainian helicopters at an airfield in Kharkiv.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine on the Russian assertion. The Ukrainian military said on Saturday it had destroyed 177 Russian aircraft and 154 helicopters since the start of the war. Reuters could not verify the figures.

(Additional reporting by Maria Starkova, Natalia Zinets, Alessandra Prentice and other Reuters journalists; Writing by Angus McDowall, Emma Thomasson and Patricia Zengerle, Editing by William Mallard, Frances Kerry, Timothy Heritage, Paul Simao and Daniel Wallis)