In a decisive battle that will determine the outcome of the Russian-Ukrainian war, Russia has begun its long-feared full-scale offensive to take control of Ukraine’s eastern region.
Although Russia has called the invasion of Ukraine a “special military operation,” the second phase of the fighting, focused on the Donbas region, bears all the hallmarks of traditional regular wars between two armies.
Since the start of the operation on Monday night, Russia has resorted to extensive and intensive bombing of a large number of Ukrainian targets. To fend off the Russian forces, the Ukrainian government has asked the West to supply it with more heavy and advanced weapons to confront the Russian army in eastern Ukraine.
In response, Russia’s Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, has accused the US and its Western allies of “doing everything to drag out” Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine by supplying Kyiv with arms.
In a televised meeting with Russian military commanders on Tuesday, Shoigu referred to eastern Ukraine’s two self-proclaimed republics, which Moscow has recognised as independent states.
“We are gradually implementing our plan to liberate the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. We are taking measures to restore peaceful life,” he said.
As evidence of the great strategic importance that Moscow gives to the second phase of the battle, Russia’s Defence Ministry confirmed that Russian missile and artillery forces had struck 1,260 targets in Ukraine overnight on Monday, and that anti-aircraft forces had downed a Ukrainian MiG-29 jet in the Donetsk region.
A senior US Defence Department official said in a statement that Russia has 76 tactical groups in the Donbas region, with 11 of these added over recent days.
In a sign of early success, Russian troops have reportedly captured the eastern Ukraine town of Kreminna, while the local authorities have urged residents in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions to evacuate.
“Currently, control over the city of Kreminna is lost, and street fighting is taking place,” Luhansk regional governor Sergiy Gaiday said in a statement on his official Telegram channel on Monday night.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov confirmed that Moscow has started a new stage of its military operation in Ukraine, predicting it will be a significant development.
“Another stage of this operation is beginning, and I am sure this will be a very important moment of this entire special operation,” Lavrov said in an interview with the India Today TV channel.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy also confirmed the military action in the eastern region.
“Now we can state that the Russian troops have begun the battle for the Donbas for which they have been preparing for a long time. A significant part of the entire Russian army is now concentrated on this offensive,” he said in a video address.
“No matter how many soldiers are driven there, we will defend ourselves. We will fight. We will not give up anything Ukrainian.” he added.
Ihor Zhovkva, deputy head of Zelensky’s office, told the BBC that it was “very important for Ukrainian forces to have heavy weaponry,” including artillery systems, tanks, and armoured vehicles.
“If Ukraine has these weapons, it will be able to withstand the Russian offensive and have victory in the eastern region,” he argued, adding that arms shipments from the West were “getting better.”
The latest $800 million batch of US military aid included “items we really need,” he added.
In the devastated Ukrainian city of Mariupol, Russian-backed fighters are reportedly trying to storm an industrial complex where the last Ukrainian defenders are holed up, along with civilians. Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Russia’s Chechnya region and an ally of Moscow, said Russian forces would completely take over the Azovstal metallurgical plant in the Ukrainian port city on Tuesday.
“Today, with the help of the Almighty, we will… take over Azovstal completely,” Kadyrov said in an audio message on his Telegram channel.
As the battles intensified in eastern Ukraine, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Tuesday that the situation in Ukraine was “perilous” and that Russian President Vladimir Putin, “angered by defeats, is determined to claim some sort of victory regardless of the human cost”.
A senior UK national security adviser said that Putin was focused on the Donbas region and that “the next phase of the war was likely to be an attritional conflict which could last several months.”
After the military setbacks that Russia has suffered in the past weeks, including its failure to achieve military progress around the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, the failure to fully control the city of Mariupol, the bombing and sinking of the warship Moskva in the Black Sea, and the killing of many of its generals, Moscow now hopes to achieve its goals in controlling eastern Ukraine, even if there are fears of a long and painful battle.
An informed European diplomat told Al-Ahram Weekly that the next stage of the battle would be difficult for the Ukrainian forces after Moscow changed the head of its military operation in Ukraine.
“There are Russian or pro-Russian forces in Donbas. Some segments of the population are also loyal to Moscow, and this constitutes a significant difference from the battles in the north and west of Ukraine,” he said.
But he warned against expecting a quick or easy Russian victory because of the experience Ukrainian fighters have gained since 2014 and the advanced military supplies they have obtained from the West.
Jack Watling, of the UK defence and security think tank the Royal United Services Institute, said that this phase of the war would be different from that seen in recent weeks.
During their offensive on Kyiv, the Russians had advanced on two roads and struggled to get off those roads because of marshes and dense woodland, he told the BBC.
While their artillery was stuck a long way from the front in traffic jams, their forward units had been in the range of Ukrainian artillery. The meant they had suffered heavy casualties whenever they tried to move.
But the battle in the east, “by contrast, is a fight over quite an open country, over a very wide area, and there are parts of it that are quite industrial and urbanised... the towns are smaller,” he said.
This means that the Russian forces should be able to be less fixed, and there should be much more in the way of contact battles rather than ambushes, he predicted.
Because of the critical importance of the battle in eastern Ukraine, it is expected that Moscow and Kyiv will focus on the military rather than the diplomatic track. European diplomats say that because of the intensification of the fighting and the large-scale bombing, diplomatic efforts to find a solution through negotiations will suffer.
French diplomatic efforts have waned because of French President Emmanuel Macron’s preoccupation with the second round of the French presidential elections scheduled for 24 April and as a result of pressures on France from Eastern European countries led by Poland that refuse to hold talks with the Russian president.
Macron confirmed on Monday that his dialogue with Putin had stalled after mass killings were discovered in Ukraine.
“Since the massacres discovered in Bucha and other towns, the war has taken a different turn, so I did not speak to him again directly since then, but I don’t rule out doing so in the future,” Macron told the France 5 television station.
Russia has called the accusations that its forces executed civilians in Bucha while occupying the town a “monstrous forgery” aimed at denigrating the Russian army.
Asked why he had not followed the example of other European leaders and travelled to the Ukrainian capital, Macron said that a show of support was not needed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“I will go back to Kyiv, but I will go there to bring something useful with me... because it’s obvious that I don’t need to travel there to show support,” Macron said, adding that he had spoken around 40 times since the start of the war to the Ukrainian president.
“If I go to Kyiv, it will be to make a difference,” he concluded.
*A version of this article appears in print in the 21 April, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.
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