Putin
Putin, Xi vow closer ties as Russia bombards Ukraine again
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping vowed Friday to deepen their bilateral cooperation against the backdrop of Moscow’s 10-month war in Ukraine, which weathered another night of drone and rocket attacks following a massive missile bombardment.
Putin and Xi made no direct mention of Ukraine in their opening remarks via videoconference, which were broadcast publicly, before going into private talks. But they hailed strengthening ties between Moscow and Beijing amid what they called “geopolitical tensions” and a “difficult international situation,” with Putin expressing his wish to extend military collaboration.
“In the face of increasing geopolitical tensions, the significance of the Russian-Chinese strategic partnership is growing as a stabilizing factor,” said Putin, whose invasion of a neighboring country has been stymied by fierce Ukrainian resistance and Western military aid.
The Russian leader said he expected Xi to visit Moscow in the spring. Such a trip “will demonstrate to the whole world the strength of the Russian-Chinese ties on key issues, will become the main political event of the year in bilateral relations,” he said.
Read: China’s foreign minister signals deeper ties with Russia
Putin said military cooperation has a “special place” in the relationship between their countries. He said the Kremlin aimed to “strengthen the cooperation between the armed forces of Russia and China.”
Xi, in turn, said through a translator that “in the face of a difficult and far from straightforward international situation,” Beijing was ready “to increase strategic cooperation with Russia, provide each other with development opportunities, be global partners for the benefit of the peoples of our countries and in the interests of stability around the world.”
In its report on the meeting, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV described the events in Ukraine as a “crisis.” The term marked a departure from China’s usual references to the “Ukraine situation,” and the change may reflect growing Chinese concern about the direction of the conflict.
“Xi Jinping emphasized that China has noted that Russia has never refused to resolve the conflict through diplomatic negotiations, for which it (China) expresses its appreciation,”” CCTV reported.
Ties between Moscow and Beijing have grown stronger since Putin sent his troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24. Just last week, Moscow and Beijing held joint naval drills in the East China Sea.
Read: Hong Kong leader aims to reopen border with China next month
China, which has promised a “no limits” friendship with Russia, has pointedly refused to criticize Moscow’s actions in Ukraine, blaming the U.S. and NATO for provoking the Kremlin, and has blasted the punishing sanctions imposed on Russia.
Russia, in turn, has strongly backed China amid the tensions with the U.S. over Taiwan.
Russia and China are both facing domestic difficulties. Putin is trying to maintain domestic support for a war that has lasted longer than anticipated, while a surge in COVID-19 cases has overwhelmed hospitals in China.
In Ukraine, authorities reviewed the toll from a widespread Russian missile attack on power stations and other vital infrastructure Thursday that was the biggest such bombardment in weeks. Four civilians were killed during the barrage, according to Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of the Ukrainian president’s office.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in its Friday morning update that Russian forces had unleashed a total of 85 missiles and 35 airstrikes on targets across Ukraine in the previous 24 hours. Russia also launched 63 attacks from multiple launch rocket systems, the military report said.
Following the first waves of missiles on Thursday morning, Russian forces attacked Ukraine with Iranian-made Shahed-131/136 drones on Thursday night and early Friday, all of which were shot down, the Ukrainian air force said.
Read: Thousands flee Hong Kong for UK, fearing China crackdown
Some were aimed at Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said Friday. Of seven kamikaze drones launched against the Ukrainian capital, two were shot down on the approach to the city and five over Kyiv itself, according to Klitschko.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address that Russia hasn’t abandoned plans to capture all of Donetsk, aiming to accomplish the goal by New Year’s Day. Zelenskyy also warned Ukrainians there could be another widespread air assault.
“There are two days left in this year. Perhaps the enemy will try once again to make us celebrate the New Year in the dark. Perhaps, the occupants are planning to make us suffer with the next strikes on our cities,” he said. “But no matter what they plan, we know one thing about ourselves: we will survive. We will. We will drive them out. No doubt about it. And they will be punished for this terrible war.”
Putin claims Moscow ready for Ukraine talks as attacks go on
President Vladimir Putin claimed that Russia is ready for talks to end the war in Ukraine even as the country faced more attacks from Moscow — a clear sign that peace wasn’t imminent.
Putin said in a state television interview, excerpts of which were released on Sunday afternoon that Russia is “prepared to negotiate some acceptable outcomes with all the participants of this process.”
He said that “it’s not us who refuse talks, it’s them” — something the Kremlin has repeatedly stated in recent months as its 10-month old invasion kept losing momentum.
Putin also repeated that Moscow has “no other choice” and said he believed the Kremlin was “acting in the right direction.”
READ: Some Ukrainians move Christmas to detach again from Russia
“We’re defending our national interests, the interests of our citizens, our people,” he said.
Putin’s remarks come as attacks on Ukraine continue. A country-wide air raid alert was announced twice on Sunday alone, and three missiles in the afternoon hit the city of Kramatorsk in the partially occupied Donetsk region, local officials reported.
The missiles hit an industrial area of the city, and there weren’t any casualties, according to the Ukrainian governor of Donetsk, Pavlo Kyrylenko. Kyrylenko said that the city of Avdiivka was also attacked on Sunday with six rounds of shelling, and a woman was wounded there.
Elsewhere in the front-line region, around the city of Bakhmut, where fierce battles have been underway in recent weeks, the Russian forces were struggling to keep up the pace of their offensive, a U.S.-based think tank reported this weekend.
“Russian forces’ rate of advance in the Bakhmut area has likely slowed in recent days, although it is too early to assess whether the Russian offensive to capture Bakhmut has culminated,” the Institute for the Study of War wrote in its recent update.
The think tank cited Russian military bloggers, who it said have recently acknowledged “that Ukrainian forces in the Bakhmut area have managed to slightly slow down the pace of the Russian advance around Bakhmut and its surrounding settlements.”
READ: A Christmas season without its traditional glow in Ukraine
Sources on Ukrainian social media “previously claimed that Ukrainian forces completely pushed Russian forces out of the eastern outskirts of Bakhmut” around Dec. 21, the report added.
“Russian forces will likely struggle to maintain the pace of their offensive operations in the Bakhmut area and may seek to initiate a tactical or operational pause,” the institute concluded.
A day before, a deadly Russian attack on the southern city of Kherson, retaken by Ukrainian forces last month, killed and wounded scores of people.
The Russian forces shelled Ukrainian-held areas of the partially occupied Kherson region 71 times over the past 24 hours, including 41 attacks on the city of Kherson, the region’s Ukrainian governor Yaroslav Yanushevich reported on Sunday.
A total of 16 people have been killed, according to the official, including three emergency workers killed in the process of demining the Berislav district of the region. Yanushevich said that 64 more have been wounded.
In the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region, the city of Nikopol was shelled overnight from heavy artillery, Gov. Valentyn Reznichenko said. No casualties have been reported.
Putin in Belarus, eyeing next steps in Ukraine war
Russian President Vladimir Putin made a rare trip Monday to Moscow's ally Belarus as his forces pursued their campaign to bombard Ukraine from the air amid a broad battlefield stalemate almost 10 months into the war.
Putin’s visit to Minsk came hours after Russia’s latest drone attack on Ukraine. Moscow has been targeting Ukraine’s power grid since October as part of a strategy to deprive the country of heat and power during winter.
His brief trip could herald more military support for the Kremlin war effort, after Belarus provided Russia with a launching pad for the invasion of Ukraine last February.
Putin said he and Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko discussed forming “a single defense space” in the region but rejected claims that Moscow was poised to swallow its neighbor.
“Russia isn’t interested in any kind of merger, it’s not feasible,” Putin said.
Putin said that he supported Lukashenko’s proposal to train the crews of Belarusian warplanes that already have been modified for using special warheads — a reference to nuclear weapons.
Earlier this year, Russia and Belarus have announced a plan to modernize Belarusian aircraft to make them nuclear-capable. Lukashenko said Belarusian crews have been training with Russia to operate those planes modified to carry nuclear weapons.
Lukashenko thanked Putin for providing his military with Iskander short range missiles and S-400 air defense systems. He also said the countries agreed to continue hold joint military exercises.
Read more: Kyiv targeted in early morning drone attack: Authorities
Belarus is believed to have Soviet-era weapons stockpiles that could be useful for Moscow. Lukashenko, meanwhile, needs help with his country’s ailing economy. It was a rare trip to Minsk by Putin, who usually receives Lukashenko in Russia.
Moscow has kept up its war effort despite Western sanctions and the supply of Western air defense systems to Ukrainian forces.
Sitting beside Lukashenko, Putin emphasized their close military-technical ties. He said they include not only mutual supplies of equipment but also joint work in high-tech military industries.
Analysts say the Kremlin might be seeking some kind of Belarusian military support for its Ukraine operations. But the winter weather and Russia’s depleted resources mean any big Russian attack probably won’t come soon, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a think tank in Washington.
“The capacity of the Russian military, even reinforced by elements of the Belarusian armed forces, to prepare and conduct effective large-scale mechanized offensive operations in the next few months remains questionable,” it said in an assessment published Sunday.
It concluded that “it is unlikely that Lukashenko will commit the Belarusian military (which would also have to be re-equipped) to the invasion of Ukraine.”
In Ukraine, multiple explosive drones attacked the capital before dawn. The attack came three days after what Ukrainian officials described as one of Russia's biggest assaults on Kyiv since the war started.
Russia launched 23 self-exploding drones over Kyiv while the city slept, but Ukrainian forces shot down 18 of them, the Kyiv city administration said on Telegram. No major casualties were reported from the attack, although the Ukrainian president’s office said the war killed at least three civilians and wounded 11 elsewhere in the country between Sunday and Monday.
The drone barrage caused emergency power outages in 11 central and eastern regions, including the capital region, authorities said.
Read more: Dead boy pulled from rubble of latest Russian hit on Ukraine
Monday was St. Nicholas Day, which marks the start of the Christmas holidays in Ukraine and is when children typically receive their first gifts hidden under pillows.
“This is how Russians congratulated our children on the holiday,” Serhii Kruk, the head of Ukraine's State Emergency Service, wrote on Telegram, attaching photos of firefighters at a stricken infrastructure facility.
“In the night when everyone is waiting for a miracle, the terrorist country continues to terrorize the peaceful Ukrainian people,” said Ukraine’s human rights chief, Dmytro Lubinets.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pleaded for Western countries to send sophisticated air defense systems as winter tightens its grip.
“A 100% air defense shield for Ukraine will be one of the most successful steps against Russian aggression,” Zelenskyy said by video link at a northern European regional threat conference in Latvia. “This step is needed right now.”
Wreckage from the downed drones damaged a road in the Solomianskyi district and broke windows in a multistory building in the Shevchenkyvskyi district of Kyiv, city officials said.
One drone hit the home of Olha and Ivan Kobzarenko, ages 84 and 83, in the outskirts of the capital. Ivan sustained a head injury.
Their garage was destroyed and their dog, Malysh, was killed. Olha, speaking in her bedroom where shattered glass and blood covered the floor, said the blast flung the front gate into the house.
“I know that I am not alone,” she said. “Everyone is suffering. Everyone.”
Nina Sobol, a 59-year-old clerk at one of Kyiv’s power companies, was going to work when the strikes happened. Like many of her colleagues, she waited outside while emergency services inspected damage.
“I feel really anxious," she said. "Anxious because you never know at which moment there will be an incoming missile.”
Ukraine's air force said on Telegram that its personnel were able to destroy 30 of at least 35 self-exploding drones that Russia launched across the country from the eastern side of the Azov Sea on Ukraine's southeast coast. Russia is on the other side of the sea.
The Ukrainian military has reported increasing success in shooting down incoming Russian missiles and drones, but Zelenskyy said Moscow had received a fresh batch of drones from Iran.
Meanwhile, warships from Russia’s Pacific Fleet set off Monday for joint naval drills with China. The exercise follows a series of joint maneuvers that have highlighted growing military cooperation between Moscow and Beijing as they both face tensions with the United States.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the U.S. was treading on dangerous ground by getting involved in the war in Ukraine.
“This dangerous and shortsighted policy has put the U.S. and Russia on the brink of a direct confrontation,” Zakharova said in a statement Monday. “Moscow is calling on Joe Biden’s administration to soberly assess the situation and refrain from dangerous escalation.”
At the United Nations, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he sees no prospect of talks to end the war in the immediate future.
“I strongly hope that in 2023, we’ll be able to reach peace in Ukraine,” Guterres said.
Putin says “doesn’t regret starting conflict and didn’t set out to destroy Ukraine”
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday he expects his mobilization of army reservists for combat in Ukraine to be completed in about two weeks, allowing him to end an unpopular and chaotic call-up meant to counter Ukrainian battlefield gains and solidify his illegal annexation of occupied territory.
Putin — facing domestic discontent and military setbacks in a neighboring country armed with increasingly advanced Western weapons — also told reporters he does not regret starting the conflict and “did not set out to destroy Ukraine” when he ordered Russian troops to invade nearly eight months ago.
“What is happening today is unpleasant, to put it mildly,” he said after attending a summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States in Kazakhstan’s capital. “But we would have had all this a little later, only under worse conditions for us, that’s all. So my actions are correct and timely.”
Russia’s difficulties in achieving its war aims have become apparent in one of the four Ukrainian regions Putin illegally claimed as Russian territory last month. Anticipating an advance by Ukrainian forces, Moscow-installed authorities in the Kherson region urged residents to flee Friday.
Even some of Putin’s own supporters have criticized the Kremlin’s handling of the war and mobilization, increasing pressure on him to do more to turn the tide in Russia’s favor.
In his comments on the army mobilization, Putin said the action he ordered last month had registered 222,000 of the 300,000 reservists the Russian Defense Ministry set as an initial goal. A total of 33,000 of them have joined military units, and 16,000 are deployed for combat, he said.
Putin ordered the call-up to bolster the fight along a 1,100-km (684-mile) front line where Ukrainian counteroffensives have inflicted blows to Moscow’s military prestige. The mobilization was troubled from the start, with confusion about who was eligible for the draft in a country where almost all men under age 65 are registered as reservists.
Opposition to the order was so strong that tens of thousands of men left Russia, and others protested in the streets. Critics were skeptical the draft would end in two weeks. They predicted only a pause to allow enlistment offices to process regular conscripts during Russia’s annual fall draft for men aged 18-27, which was postponed from Oct. 1 to Nov. 1.
“Do not believe Putin about ‘two weeks.’ Mobilization can only be canceled by his decree. No decree - no cancellation,” Vyacheslav Gimadi, an attorney for imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, wrote on Facebook.
Asked about the possibility of an expanded mobilization, the Russian president said the Defense Ministry had not asked him to authorize one.
“Nothing further is planned,” Putin said, adding, ”In the foreseeable future, I don’t see any need.”
Putin and other officials stated in September the mobilization would affect some 300,000 people, but his enabling decree did not cite a specific number. Russian media reports have suggested it could be as high as 1.2 million.
Putin had also said only those with combat or service experience would be drafted. He later admitted military officials had made mistakes, such as enlisting reservists without the relevant background. Men who received minimal training decades ago were drafted in droves.
Reports also have surfaced that some recruits were sent to the front lines in Ukraine with little preparation and inadequate equipment. Several mobilized reservists were reported to have died in combat in Ukraine this week, just days after they were drafted.
Putin responded to the criticism Friday, saying all activated recruits should receive adequate training and that he would assign Russia’s Security Council “to conduct an inspection of how mobilized citizens are being trained.”
Before launching the invasion on Feb. 24, Putin questioned Ukraine’s right to exist as a sovereign nation, portraying the country as part of historic Russia. Asked about this on Friday, he repeated his claim that Russia was prepared for peace talks and again accused the Ukrainian government of quitting negotiations after Russian troops withdrew from Kyiv early in the war.
Ukraine rejected any possibility of negotiating with Putin after he illegally annexed Ukraine’s Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk regions last month based on “referendums” that Kyiv and the West denounced as a sham.
The battlefield momentum has shifted toward Ukraine as its military recaptures cities, towns and villages that Russia took early in the war. After occupied Kherson’s worried Kremlin-backed leaders asked civilians to evacuate to ensure their safety and to give Russian troops more maneuverability, Moscow offered free accommodations.
Russia has characterized the movement of Ukrainians to Russia or Russian-controlled territory as voluntary, but in many cases they aren’t allowed to travel to Ukrainian-held territory, and reports have surfaced that some were forcibly deported to “filtration camps” with harsh conditions.
An Associated Press investigation found that Russian officials deported thousands of Ukrainian children — some orphaned, others living with foster families or in institutions — to be raised as Russian.
Ukrainian forces reported retaking 75 populated places in northern Kherson in the last month, according to Ukraine’s Ministry for Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories. A similar campaign in eastern Ukraine resulted in most of the Kharkiv region returning to Ukrainian control, as well as parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, the ministry said.
As they retreat, Russian forces are adding to their losses by abandoning weapons and ammunition. In the U.S., the Office of the Director of National Intelligence presented a slide deck Friday stating that at least 6,000 pieces of Russian equipment have been lost since the start of the war. The presentation outlines enormous pressure on Russia’s defense industry to replace its losses and says that because of export controls and international sanctions, Russia is expending munitions at an unsustainable rate.
Konstantin, a Kherson resident who spoke to the AP only if his last name was withheld for safety reasons, said columns of military trucks had moved around the region’s capital and eventually left. Most government offices have reduced working hours, and schools have closed, he said.
“The city is now in suspense. Primarily the Russian military from the headquarters and the family of collaborators are leaving,” Konstantin said. “Everyone is discussing the imminent arrival of the Ukrainian military and preparing for it.”
Russian forces on Friday carried out missile strikes on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, and in the Zaphorizhzhia region, home to Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant. The U.N.’s nuclear watchdog has warned that fighting at or near the Russian-controlled Zaphorizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, now shuttered, could trigger a catastrophic radiation release.
Putin has vowed to retaliate if Ukraine or its allies strike Russian territory, including the annexed regions of Ukraine. Russia’s Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine came under attack for a second day Friday. According to Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov, the shelling damaged an electric substation, five houses in the village of Voznesenovka and a power line, leaving several nearby villages temporarily without electricity. No casualties or injuries were reported.
Ukrainian shelling blew up an ammunition depot in the Belgorod region on Thursday, according to Russia’s Investigative Committee. Unconfirmed media reports said three Russian National Guard officers were killed and more than 10 were wounded.
Vowing to liberate all Russian-occupied areas, Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhny, the commander of Ukraine’s armed forces, said in a video message Friday, “We have buried the myth of the invincibility of the Russian army.”
On 70th birthday, Putin finds himself in the eye of a storm of his own making
As he turns 70 on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin finds himself in the eye of a storm of his own making: His army is suffering humiliating defeats in Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands of Russians are fleeing his mobilization order, and his top lieutenants are publicly insulting military leaders.
With his room for maneuvering narrowing, Putin has repeatedly signaled that he could resort to nuclear weapons to protect the Russian gains in Ukraine — a harrowing threat that shatters the claims of stability he has repeated throughout his 22-year rule.
“This is really a hard moment for him, but he can’t accuse anyone else. He did it himself,” said Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment. “And he is going straight ahead to big, big problems.”
By unleashing the disastrous war in Ukraine, Europe’s largest military conflict since World War II, Putin has broken an unwritten social contract in which Russians tacitly agreed to forgo post-Soviet political freedoms in exchange for relative prosperity and internal stability.
Mikhail Zygar, a journalist who has had extensive contacts among the Kremlin elite and published a bestselling book about Putin and his entourage, noted that the invasion came as a complete surprise not only for the public but for Putin’s closest associates.
“All of them are in shock,” Zygar said. “None of them wanted to see the developments unfold in such a way just because they are going to lose everything. Now they are all stained by blood, and they all understand they have nowhere to run.”
Stanislav Belkovsky, a longtime political consultant with extensive contacts among the ruling class, described the invasion as a mechanism of “self-destruction for Putin, his regime and the Russian Federation.”
With the Russian army retreating under the blows of Ukrainian forces armed with Western weapons, Putin raised the stakes by annexing four Ukrainian regions and declaring a partial mobilization of up to 300,000 reservists to buttress the crumbling front line.
The poorly organized call-up has triggered broad chaos. The military is struggling to provide supplies for new recruits, many of whom were told to buy medical kits and other basics themselves and were left to sleep on the floor while waiting to be sent to the front.
Social networks have been abuzz with discussions about how to dodge recruitment, and hundreds of thousands of men fled the mobilization, swarming Russia’s borders with ex-Soviet neighbors.
The mobilization, Kolesnikov noted, has eroded Putin’s core support base and set the stage for potential political upheavals. “After the partial mobilization, it’s impossible to explain to anyone that he stabilized the system. He disrupted the foundation of stability,” he said.
The military setbacks also drew public insults from some of Putin’s top lieutenants directed toward military leaders. The Kremlin has done nothing to halt the criticism, a signal that Putin could use it to set the stage for a major shakeup of the top brass and blame them for the defeats.
“The infighting between powerful clans in Putin’s entourage could destabilize the system and significantly weaken Putin’s control over the situation in the country,” Belkovsky said.
The widening turmoil marks a dramatic contrast with the image of stability Putin has cultivated since taking helm in 2000. He has repeatedly described the turbulent rule of his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, as a time of decay when national riches were pilfered by Kremlin-connected tycoons and the West while millions were plunged into poverty.
Russians have eagerly embraced Putin’s promises to restore their country’s grandeur amid oil-driven economic prosperity, and they have been largely indifferent to the Kremlin’s relentless crackdown on political freedoms.
Insiders who have closely studied Putin’s thinking say he still believes he can emerge as a winner.
Belkovsky argued that Putin hopes to win by using energy as an instrument of pressure. By reducing the gas flow to Europe and striking a deal with OPEC to reduce oil output, he could drive prices up and raise pressure on the U.S. and its allies.
Putin wants the West to tacitly accept the current status quo in Ukraine, resume energy cooperation with Russia, lift the most crippling sanctions and unfreeze Russian assets, Belkovsky said.
“He still believes that he will get his way in the long showdown with the West, where the situation on the Ukrainian front line is just one important, but not decisive, element,” Belkovsky said.
At the same time, Putin threatened to use “all means available” to defend the newly annexed Ukrainian territories in a blunt attempt to force Ukraine and its Western allies to back off.
The U.S. and its allies have said they are taking Putin’s threats seriously but will not yield to what they describe as blackmail to force the West to abandon Ukraine. Ukraine vowed to press its counteroffensive despite the Russian rhetoric.
Kolesnikov described Putin’s nuclear threats as a reflection of growing desperation.
“This is the last step for him in a sense that this is a suicidal” move, Kolesnikov said. “If he’s ready for the step, it means that we are witnessing a dictator who is even worse than Stalin.”
Some observers have argued that NATO could strike Russia with conventional weapons if Putin presses the nuclear button.
Belkovsky warned that Putin firmly believes that the U.S. and its allies wouldn’t dare to strike back if Russia used a low-yield nuclear weapon in Ukraine.
“If the U.S. believes that there is no psychologically readiness for that, it’s mistaken,” he said.
Zygar compared the Russian leader to a fighter pilot who tries to win a dogfight by attacking the enemy head-on and waiting for him to turn away first.
“He thinks he has the nerve, and he believes he must escalate to the end,” Zygar said.
He noted that pundits failed to predict Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the current invasion just because they were using rational criteria.
“Our past perceptions about rational limits all have proven false,” he said. “There are no such limits.”
Protests sparked as Putin orders a partial military call-up
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial mobilization of reservists Wednesday to bolster his forces in Ukraine, a deeply unpopular move that sparked rare protests across the country and led to almost 1,200 arrests.
The risky order follows humiliating setbacks for Putin’s troops nearly seven months after they invaded Ukraine. The first such call-up in Russia since World War II heightened tensions with Ukraine’s Western backers, who derided it as an act of weakness and desperation.
The move also sent some Russians scrambling to buy plane tickets to flee the country.
In his 14-minute nationally televised address, Putin also warned the West that he isn’t bluffing about using everything at his disposal to protect Russia — an apparent reference to his nuclear arsenal. He has previously rebuked NATO countries for supplying weapons to Ukraine.
Confronted with steep battlefield losses, expanding front lines and a conflict that has raged longer than expected, the Kremlin has struggled to replenish its troops in Ukraine, reportedly even resorting to widespread recruitment in prisons.
The total number of reservists to be called up could be as high as 300,000, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said. However, Putin’s decree authorizing the partial mobilization, which took effect immediately, offered few details, raising suspicions that the draft could be broadened at any moment. Notably, one clause was kept secret.
Despite Russia’s harsh laws against criticizing the military and the war, protesters outraged by the mobilization overcame their fear of arrest to stage protests in cities across the country. Nearly 1,200 Russians were arrested in anti-war demonstrations in cities including Moscow and St. Petersburg, according to the independent Russian human rights group OVD-Info.
Associated Press journalists in Moscow witnessed at least a dozen arrests in the first 15 minutes of a nighttime protest in the capital, with police in heavy body armor tackling demonstrators in front of shops, hauling some away as they chanted, “No to war!”
“I’m not afraid of anything. The most valuable thing that they can take from us is the life of our children. I won’t give them life of my child,” said one Muscovite, who declined to give her name.
Asked whether protesting would help, she said: “It won’t help, but it’s my civic duty to express my stance. No to war!”
In Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth-largest city, police hauled onto buses some of the 40 protesters who were detained at an anti-war rally. One woman in a wheelchair shouted, referring to the Russian president: “Goddamn bald-headed ‘nut job’. He’s going to drop a bomb on us, and we’re all still protecting him. I’ve said enough.”
The Vesna opposition movement called for protests, saying: “Thousands of Russian men — our fathers, brothers and husbands — will be thrown into the meat grinder of the war. What will they be dying for? What will mothers and children be crying for?”
The Moscow prosecutor’s office warned that organizing or participating in protests could lead to up to 15 years in prison. Authorities have issued similar warnings ahead of other protests. Wednesday’s were the first nationwide anti-war protests since the fighting began in late February.
Other Russians responded by trying to leave the country, and flights out quickly became booked.
In Armenia, Sergey arrived with his 17-year-old son, saying they had prepared for such a scenario. Another Russian, Valery, said his wife’s family lives in Kyiv, and mobilization is out of the question for him “just for the moral aspect alone.” Both men declined to give their last names.
The state communication watchdog Roskomnadzor warned media that access to their websites would be blocked for transmitting “false information” about the mobilization.
Residents in Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, appeared despondent about the mobilization as they watched emergency workers clear debris from Russian rocket attacks on two apartment buildings.
“You just don’t know what to expect from him,” said Kharkiv resident Olena Milevska, 66. “But you do understand that it’s something personal for him.”
In calling for the mobilization, Putin cited the length of the front line, which he said exceeds 1,000 kilometers (more than 620 miles). He also said Russia is effectively fighting the combined military might of Western countries.
Western leaders said the mobilization was in response to Russia’s recent battlefield losses.
President Joe Biden told the U.N. General Assembly that Putin’s new nuclear threats showed “reckless disregard” for Russia’s responsibilities as a signer of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Hours later, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged world leaders at the gathering to strip Russia of its vote in international institutions and its U.N. Security Council veto, saying that aggressors need to be punished and isolated.
Speaking by video, Zelenskyy said his forces “can return the Ukrainian flag to our entire territory. We can do it with the force of arms. But we need time.”
Putin did not attend the meeting.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny said the mobilization means the war “is getting worse, deepening, and Putin is trying to involve as many people as possible. … It’s being done just to let one person keep his grip on personal power.”
The partial mobilization order came two days before Russian-controlled regions in eastern and southern Ukraine plan to hold referendums on becoming part of Russia — a move that could allow Moscow to escalate the war. The votes start Friday in the Luhansk, Kherson and partly Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions.
Foreign leaders are already calling the votes illegitimate and nonbinding. Zelenskyy said they were a “sham” and “noise” to distract the public.
Michael Kofman, head of Russian studies at the CNA think tank in Washington, said Putin has staked his regime on the war, and that annexation “is a point of no return,” as is mobilization “to an extent.”
“Partial mobilization affects everybody. And everybody in Russia understands ... that they could be the next wave, and this is only the first wave,” Kofman said.
Shoigu, Russia’s defense minister, said only some of those with relevant combat and service experience will be mobilized. He said about 25 million people fit that criteria, but only about 1% of them will be mobilized.
It wasn’t clear how many years of combat experience or what level of training soldiers must have to be mobilized. Another clause in the decree prevents most professional soldiers from terminating their contracts until after the partial mobilization.
Putin’s mobilization gambit could backfire by making the war unpopular at home and hurting his own standing. It also concedes Russia’s underlying military shortcomings.
A Ukrainian counteroffensive this month seized the military initiative from Russia and captured large areas in Ukraine from Russian forces.
The Russian mobilization is unlikely to produce any consequences on the battlefield for months because of a lack of training facilities and equipment.
Russian political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin said it seemed “an act of desperation.”
“People will evade this mobilization in every possible way, bribe their way out of this mobilization, leave the country,” he said.
He described the announcement as “a huge personal blow to Russian citizens, who until recently (took part in the hostilities) with pleasure, sitting on their couches, (watching) TV. And now the war has come into their home.”
In his address, Putin accused the West of engaging in “nuclear blackmail” and cited alleged “statements of some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO states about the possibility of using nuclear weapons of mass destruction against Russia.”
He did not elaborate.
“When the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, to protect Russia and our people, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal,” Putin said.
In other developments, relatives of two U.S. military veterans who disappeared while fighting Russia with Ukrainian forces said they had been released after about three months in captivity. They were part of a swap arranged by Saudi Arabia of 10 prisoners from the U.S., Morocco, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Croatia.
And in another release, Ukraine announced early Thursday that it had won freedom from Russian custody of 215 Ukrainian and foreign citizens, including fighters who had defended a besieged steel plant in the city of Mariupol for months. Zelenskyy posted a video showing an official briefing him on the freeing of the citizens, in exchange for pro-Russian opposition leader Viktor Medvedchuk and 55 others held by Ukraine.
Putin orders troop replenishment in face of Ukraine losses
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a major buildup of his country’s military forces Thursday in an apparent effort to replenish troops that have suffered heavy losses in six months of bloody warfare and prepare for a long, grinding fight ahead in Ukraine.
The move to increase the number of troops by 137,000, or 13%, to 1.15 million by the end of the year came amid chilling developments on the ground in Ukraine:
— Fueling fears of a nuclear catastrophe, the Zaporizhzhia power plant in the middle of the fighting in southern Ukraine was briefly knocked out of commission by fire damage to a transmission line, authorities said. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the plant’s emergency backup diesel generators had to be activated to provide power needed to operate the plant.
“Russia has put Ukraine and all Europeans one step away from a radiation disaster,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address.
— The death toll from a Russian rocket attack on a train station and the surrounding area climbed to 25, Ukrainian authorities said. Russia said it targeted a military train and claimed to have killed more than 200 Ukrainian reservists in the attack, which took place Wednesday on Ukraine’s Independence Day.
Putin’s decree did not specify whether the expansion would be accomplished by widening the draft, recruiting more volunteers, or both. But some Russian military analysts predicted heavier reliance on volunteers because of the Kremlin’s concerns about a potential domestic backlash from an expanded draft.
The move will boost Russia’s armed forces overall to 2.04 million, including the 1.15 million troops.
Western estimates of Russian dead in the Ukraine war have ranged from more than 15,000 to over 20,000 — more than the Soviet Union lost during its 10-year war in Afghanistan. The Pentagon said last week that as many as 80,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded, eroding Moscow’s ability to conduct big offensives.
The Kremlin has said that only volunteer contract soldiers take part in the Ukraine war. But it may be difficult to find more willing soldiers, and military analysts said the planned troop levels may still be insufficient to sustain operations.
Read: Ukrainian fears run high over fighting near nuclear plant
Retired Russian Col. Retired Viktor Murakhovsky said in comments carried by the Moscow-based RBC online news outlet that the Kremlin will probably try to keep relying on volunteers, and he predicted that will account for the bulk of the increase.
Another Russian military expert, Alexei Leonkov, noted that training on complex modern weapons normally takes three years. And draftees serve only one year.
“A draft won’t help that, so there will be no increase in the number of draftees,” the state RIA Novosti news agency quoted Leonkov as saying.
Fears of a Chernobyl-like disaster have been mounting in Ukraine because of fighting around the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia plant. Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of shelling the site.
In the incident on Thursday, the plant was cut off from the electrical grid, causing a blackout across the region, according to authorities. The complex was later reconnected to the grid, a local Russian-installed official said.
It was not immediately clear from Ukrainian energy authorities whether the damaged line carried outgoing electricity or incoming power to operate the plant. But Zelenskyy’s mention of the emergency generators implied that incoming power was affected. Incoming electricity is needed to run the reactors’ vital cooling systems.
Zelenskyy said Ukraine would have faced a radiation accident if the diesel generators had failed to turn on.
He blamed the fire that damaged the transmission line on Russian shelling. But Zaporizhzhia’s Russian-installed regional governor, Yevgeny Balitsky, blamed a Ukrainian attack.
While the incident apparently didn’t affect the reactors’ cooling systems — whose loss could lead to a meltdown — it stoked fears of disaster.
“The situation is extremely dangerous,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said. “I’m receiving reports that there are fires in the forest near the power plant. We still have to examine this issue more.”
Elsewhere on the battle front, the deadly strike on the train station in Chaplyne, a town of about 3,500 in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, came as Ukraine was bracing for attacks tied to the national holiday and the war’s six-month mark, both of which fell on Wednesday.
The deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, did not say whether all of the 25 people killed were civilians. If they were, it would amount to one of the deadliest attacks on civilians in weeks. Thirty-one people were reported wounded.
Witnesses said some of the victims, including at least one child, burned to death in train cars or passing automobiles.
“Everything sank into dust,” said Olena Budnyk, a 65-year-old Chaplyne resident. “There was a dust storm. We couldn’t see anything. We didn’t know where to run.”
The dead included an 11-year-old boy found under the rubble of a house and a 6-year-old killed in a car fire near the train station, authorities said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces used an Iskander missile to strike a military train carrying Ukrainian troops and equipment to the front line in eastern Ukraine. The ministry claimed more than 200 reservists “were destroyed on their way to the combat zone.”
The attack served as a painful reminder of Russia’s continued ability to inflict large-scale suffering. Wednesday’s national holiday celebrated Ukraine’s 1991 declaration of independence from the Soviet Union.
Tetyana Kvitnytska, deputy head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional health department, said those hurt in the train station attack suffered head injuries, broken limbs, burns and shrapnel wounds.
Following attacks in which civilians have died, the Russian government has repeatedly claimed that its forces aim only at legitimate military targets. Hours before the bloodshed at the train station, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu insisted the military was doing its best to spare civilians, even at the cost of slowing down its offensive in Ukraine.
In April, a Russian missile attack on a train station in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk killed more than 50 people as crowds of mostly women and children sought to flee the fighting. The attack was denounced as a war crime.
In Moscow on Thursday, Dmitry Medvedev, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council, said Western hopes for a Ukrainian victory are futile and emphasized that the Kremlin will press home what it calls the “special military operation,” leaving just two possible outcomes.
“One is reaching all goals of the special military operation and Kyiv’s recognition of this outcome,” Medvedev said on his messaging app channel. “The second is a military coup in Ukraine followed by the recognition of results of the special operation.”
Putin declares victory in eastern Ukraine region of Luhansk
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday declared victory in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk, one day after Ukrainian forces withdrew from their last remaining bulwark of resistance in the province.
Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to Putin in a televised meeting Monday that Russian forces had taken control of Luhansk, which together with the neighboring Donetsk province makes up Ukraine's industrial heartland of Donbas.
Shoigu told Putin that “the operation” was completed on Sunday after Russian troops overran the city of Lysychansk, the last stronghold of Ukrainian forces in Luhansk.
Putin, in turn, said that the military units “that took part in active hostilities and achieved success, victory” in Luhansk, “should rest, increase their combat capabilities.”
Putin’s declaration came as Russian forces tried to press their offensive deeper into eastern Ukraine after the Ukrainian military confirmed that its forces had withdrawn from Lysychansk on Sunday. Luhansk governor Serhii Haidai said on Monday that Ukrainian forces had retreated from the city to avoid being surrounded.
Also read: Russia claims control of pivotal eastern Ukrainian province
“There was a risk of Lysychansk encirclement,” Haidai told the Associated Press, adding that Ukrainian troops could have held on for a few more weeks but would have potentially paid too high a price.
“We managed to do centralized withdrawal and evacuate all injured,” Haidai said. “We took back all the equipment, so from this point withdrawal was organized well.”
The Ukrainian General Staff said Russian forces were now focusing their efforts on pushing toward the line of Siversk, Fedorivka and Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, about half of which is controlled by Russia. The Russian army has also intensified its shelling of the key Ukrainian strongholds of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, deeper in Donetsk.
On Sunday, six people, including a 9-year-old girl, were killed in the Russian shelling of Sloviansk and another 19 people were wounded, according to local authorities. Kramatorsk also came under fire on Sunday.
An intelligence briefing Monday from the British Defense Ministry supported the Ukrainian military's assessment, noting that Russian forces will “now almost certainly” switch to capturing Donetsk. The briefing said the conflict in Donbas has been “grinding and attritional,” and is unlikely to change in the coming weeks.
While the Russian army has a massive advantage in firepower, military analysts say that it doesn't have any significant superiority in the number of troops. That means Moscow lacks resources for quick land gains and can only advance slowly, relying on heavy artillery and rocket barrages to soften Ukrainian defenses.
Putin has made capturing the entire Donbas a key goal in his war in Ukraine, now in its fifth month. Moscow-backed separatists in Donbas have battled Ukrainian forces since 2014 when they declared independence from Kyiv after the Russian annexation of Ukraine's Crimea. Russia formally recognized the self-proclaimed republics days before its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.
Since failing to take Kyiv and other areas in Ukraine's northeast early in the war, Russia has focused on Donbas, unleashing fierce shelling and engaging in house-to-house combat that devastated cities in the region.
Also read: Russia's defense minister reports capture of Ukraine city
Russia's invasion has also devastated Ukraine's agricultural sector, disrupting supply chains of seed and fertilizer needed by Ukrainian farmers and blocking the export of grain, a key source of revenue for the country.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in his nightly video address, called for immediate economic aid to help the country rebuild even as fighting continues.
“The restoration of Ukraine is not only about what needs to be done later after our victory, but also about what needs to be done right now. And we must do this together with our partners, with the entire democratic world,” he said.
“A significant part of the economy has been destroyed by hostilities and Russian strikes. Thousands of enterprises do not work. And this means a high need for jobs, to provide social benefits, despite the decrease in tax revenues,” Zelenskyy said.
In its Monday intelligence report, Britain's defense ministry pointed to the Russian blockade of the key Ukrainian port of Odesa, which has severely restricted grain exports. They predicted that Ukraine's agricultural exports would reach only 35% of the 2021 total this year as a result.
As Moscow pushed its offensive across Ukraine's east, areas in western Russia came under attack Sunday in a revival of sporadic apparent Ukrainian strikes across the border. The governor of the Belgorod region in Western Russia said fragments of an intercepted Ukrainian missile killed four people Sunday. In the Russian city of Kursk, two Ukrainian drones were shot down, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.
No end in sight for Ukraine war as Putin hails Victory Day
Russian President Vladimir Putin used a major patriotic holiday Monday to again justify his war in Ukraine but did not declare even a limited victory or signal where the conflict was headed, as his forces continued to pummel targets across the country with few signs of significant progress.
The Russian leader oversaw a Victory Day parade on Red Square, with troops marching in formation, military hardware on display, and a brass band blaring to mark the Soviet Union's defeat of Nazi Germany. But his much-anticipated speech offered no new insights to how he intended to salvage the grinding war — and instead stuck to allegations that Ukraine posed a threat to Russia, even though Moscow’s nuclear-armed forces are far superior in numbers and firepower.
“The danger was rising by the day,” he said as he surveyed the troops. “Russia has given a pre-emptive response to aggression. It was a forced, timely and the only correct decision.”
Ukrainian leaders and their Western backers have often rejected claims that Kyiv posed any threat to its giant neighbor.
Many analysts had suggested Putin might use his speech to declare some sort of limited victory — potentially in the besieged strategic port city of Mariupol — as he looks for an exit from the conflict that has unleashed punishing sanctions from the West and strained Russia’s resources. Others suggested he might order a nationwide mobilization to beef up the depleted ranks for an extended conflict.
There was “nothing significant in Putin’s speech today, but he will need to make a decision regarding mobilization in the coming weeks,” wrote Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Philadelphia-based Foreign Policy Research Institute, on Twitter.
Also read: Putin to mark Victory Day as Russia presses Ukraine assault
As Putin laid a wreath in Moscow, air raid sirens echoed again in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared in his own Victory Day address that his country would eventually defeat the Russians.
“Very soon there will be two Victory Days in Ukraine,” he said in a video released to mark the holiday. “We have never fought against anyone. We always fight for ourselves. ... We are fighting for freedom for our children, and therefore we will win.”
An adviser to Zelenskyy also pushed back against the idea that Ukraine and its Western allies posed any threat to Russia.
Mykhailo Podolyak wrote on Twitter that “NATO countries were not going to attack Russia. Ukraine did not plan to attack Crimea,” which Russia seized in 2014.
The Ukrainian military’s General Staff warned Monday of a high probability of missile strikes on the holiday, and Britain’s Defense Ministry said in its daily assessment Russian forces could increasingly subject Ukrainian towns and cities to “intense and indiscriminate bombardments with little or no regard for civilian casualties" as they run short of precision-guided munitions.
In fact, more than 60 people were feared dead after a Russian bomb flattened a Ukrainian school being used as a shelter in Bilohorivka, an eastern village, Ukrainian officials said.
With the war now in its 11th week, battles were being waged on multiple fronts, but Russia was perhaps closest to victory in Mariupol, where Ukrainian fighters are making a last stand at a sprawling steel mill in a battle that has highlighted some of the worst suffering of the war.
The complete capture of Mariupol would deprive Ukraine of a vital port, allow Russia to complete a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, and free troops up for fighting elsewhere in the Donbas, which is now Putin's stated focus following his failure to seize the capital in the early days of the conflict. The fall of the city would provide a much-needed symbolic victory for Russia.
Russian forces pounded away over the weekend at the plant, where as many as 2,000 Ukrainian fighters are are estimated to be holding out.
Also read: Russian mercenaries are Putin's 'coercive tool' in Africa
“We are under constant shelling,” said Capt. Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Ukrainian Azov Regiment, which held the mill.
Lt. Illya Samoilenko, another regiment member, said a couple hundred wounded soldiers were inside. He declined to say how many able-bodied fighters remained. He said fighters had to dig by hand to free people from bunkers that collapsed under shelling.
For weeks, hundreds of civilians also took shelter with the fighters at the plant, but the last were evacuated Saturday. In a convoy led by the United Nations and international Red Cross, they arrived Sunday night in Zaporizhzhia, the first major Ukrainian city beyond the frontlines. They spoke of constant shelling, dwindling food, ubiquitous mold — and using hand sanitizer for cooking fuel.
The Ukrainian military warned Russian troops were seizing "personal documents from the local population without good reason” in parts of the Zaporizhzhia region that they controlled — allegedly as a way to force residents to join in Victory Day commemorations.
As a stiffer than expected Ukrainian resistance, bolstered by Western arms, has bogged down Russian forces, Moscow scaled back its war aims. It is now pressing offensives in some areas of southern Ukraine and the Donbas, where Moscow-backed separatists have fought Ukrainian troops for years. But they still have struggled to make significant strides, and Ukrainian and Russian forces have fought village by village in recent weeks.
A Ukrainian counteroffensive in the northeast near Kharkiv, outside of the Donbas but key to offensive there, was making “significant progress,” according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.
However, Rodion Miroshnik, a pro-Kremlin official in the Luhansk region of the Donbas, said Moscow-backed separatist forces and Russian troops had captured most of Popasna, an embattled city that saw two months of fierce fighting.
The southern Black Sea port of Odesa has also seen increased fighting recently, and Ukrainian officials said Russia fired four cruise missiles targeting the city Monday from Crimea. It said no civilians were wounded in the attack, but did not elaborate on what was struck.
“The enemy continues to destroy the infrastructure of the region and exert psychological pressure on the civilian population,” the command said. “There is a very high probability of continued missile attacks in the region.”
As they struggle to make gain, Russian forces have repeatedly shelled cities and towns indiscriminately. About 90 people were sheltering in the school basement in Bilohorivka when it was attacked Saturday. Emergency crews found two bodies and rescued 30 people, but “most likely all 60 people who remain under the rubble are now dead,” Serhiy Haidai, governor of Luhansk province, wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Ukraine’s military also warned some 19 Russian battalion tactical groups were stationed just across the border in Russia’s Belgorod region. Those groups likely consist of some 15,200 troops with tanks, missile batteries and other weaponry.
As Victory Day turned attention toward Putin, Western leaders showed new signs of support for Ukraine.
The Group of Seven leading industrial democracies pledged Sunday to ban or phase out imports of Russian oil.
The United States, meanwhile, announced new sanctions, cutting off Western advertising from Russia’s three biggest TV stations, banning U.S. accounting and consulting firms from providing services, and cutting off Russia’s industrial sector from wood products, industrial engines, boilers and bulldozers.
U.S. first lady Jill Biden met Sunday with her Ukrainian counterpart. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau raised his country’s flag at its embassy in Kyiv. And U2′s Bono, alongside bandmate The Edge, performed in a Kyiv subway station that had been used as a bomb shelter, singing the 1960s song “Stand by Me.”
Putin to mark Victory Day as Russia presses Ukraine assault
Russian forces pushed forward Monday in their assault on Ukraine, seeking to capture the crucial southern port city of Mariupol as Moscow prepared to celebrate its national Victory Day holiday.
Determined to show a success in a war now in its 11th week, Russian troops have targeted a sprawling seaside steel mill where an estimated 2,000 Ukrainian fighters were making what appeared to be their last stand to save Mariupol from falling.
The mill is the only part of the city not overtaken by the invaders, and its defeat would deprive Ukraine of a vital port and allow Russia to establish a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned that worsening attacks could be linked to Victory Day, which marks Russia’s greatest triumph, over Nazi Germany in 1945. Russian President Vladimir Putin may want to proclaim a win in Ukraine when he addresses troops parading on Red Square.
“They have nothing to celebrate,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said of the Russians, speaking on CNN. “They have not succeeded in defeating the Ukrainians. They have not succeeded in dividing the world or dividing NATO. And they have only succeeded in isolating themselves internationally and becoming a pariah state around the globe.”
Though fighting continues on multiple fronts, Russia is closest to victory in Mariupol.
Ukrainian fighters in the steel mill have rejected deadlines set by the Russians for laying down their arms even as attacks continued by warplanes, artillery and tanks.
“We are under constant shelling,” said Capt. Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Ukrainian Azov Regiment, a unit holding the steel mill.
Also Read: Western officials visit Ukraine after deadly school bombing
Lt. Illya Samoilenko, another member of the Azov Regiment, said there were a couple of hundred wounded soldiers at the plant but declined to reveal how many able-bodied fighters remained. He said fighters didn’t have lifesaving equipment and had to dig by hand to free people from bunkers that had collapsed under the shelling.
“Surrender for us is unacceptable because we cannot grant such a gift to the enemy,” Samoilenko said.
The last of the civilians taking shelter with fighters at the plant were evacuated Saturday. They arrived Sunday night in Zaporizhzhia, the first major Ukrainian city beyond the frontlines, and spoke of constant shelling, dwindling food, ubiquitous mold — and using hand sanitizer for cooking fuel.
Elsewhere in Ukraine, more than 60 people were feared dead after a Russian bomb flattened a school being used as a shelter in the eastern village of Bilohorivka, Ukrainian officials said.
Authorities said about 90 people were sheltering in the school’s basement when it was attacked Saturday. Emergency crews found two bodies and rescued 30 people, but “most likely all 60 people who remain under the rubble are now dead,” Serhiy Haidai, governor of Luhansk province, wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Russian shelling also killed two boys, ages 11 and 14, in the nearby town of Pryvillia, Haidai said. Luhansk is part of the Donbas, the industrial heartland in the east that Russia’s forces are working to capture.
On Ukraine’s coast, explosions echoed again across the major Black Sea port of Odesa. The Ukrainian military said Moscow was focusing its main efforts on destroying airfield infrastructure in eastern and southern Ukraine.
In a sign of the dogged resistance that has sustained the fighting into its 11th week, Ukraine’s military struck Russian positions on a Black Sea island that was captured in the war’s first days. A satellite image by Planet Labs showed smoke rising from two sites on the island.
But Moscow’s forces showed no sign of backing down in the south. Satellite photos show Russia has put armored vehicles and missile systems at a small base in the Crimean Peninsula.
The most intense combat in recent days has taken place in eastern Ukraine. A Ukrainian counteroffensive in the northeast near Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, is making “significant progress,” according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank.
However, the Ukrainian army withdrew from the embattled eastern city of Popasna, regional authorities said.
Rodion Miroshnik, a representative of the pro-Kremlin, separatist Luhansk People’s Republic, said its forces and Russian troops had captured most of Popasna after two months of fierce fighting.
The Kharkiv regional administration said three people were killed in shelling of the town of Bogodukhiv, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Kharkiv.
South of Kharkiv, in Dnipropetrovsk province, the governor said a 12-year-old boy was killed by a cluster munition that he found after a Russian attack. An international treaty bans the use of such explosives, but neither Russia nor Ukraine has signed the agreement.
“This war is treacherous,” the governor, Valentyn Reznichenko, wrote on social media. “It is near, even when it is invisible.”
As Victory Day neared and the spotlight turned to Putin, Western leaders showed new signs of support for Ukraine.
The Group of Seven industrial democracies pledged to ban or phase out imports of Russian oil. The G-7 consists of the U.S., Canada, Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Japan.
Also Read: Dozens feared dead as Russian shell hits Ukrainian school
The United States also announced new sanctions against Russia, cutting off Western advertising from Russia’s three biggest TV stations, banning U.S. accounting and consulting firms from providing services, and cutting off Russia’s industrial sector from wood products, industrial engines, boilers and bulldozers.
U.S. first lady Jill Biden met with her Ukrainian counterpart. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau raised his country’s flag at its embassy in Kyiv. And U2′s Bono, alongside bandmate The Edge, performed in a Kyiv subway station that had been used as a bomb shelter, singing the 1960s song “Stand by Me.”
The acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Kristina Kvien, posted a picture of herself at the American Embassy, and described plans for the eventual U.S. return to the Ukrainian capital after Moscow’s forces abandoned their effort to storm Kyiv weeks ago and began focusing on the capture of the Donbas.
Zelenskyy released a video address marking the day of the Allied victory in Europe 77 years ago, drawing parallels between Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the evils of Nazism. The black-and-white footage showed Zelenskyy standing in front of a ruined apartment block in Borodyanka, a Kyiv suburb.
Zelenskyy said that generations of Ukrainians understood the significance of the words “Never again,” a phrase often used as a vow not to allow a repeat of the horrors of the Holocaust.