“We can now say that Russian troops have started the battle for Donbass.” In a speech broadcast Monday on Telegram, the Ukrainian president announced the start of the Russian offensive in the east of the country. “A very large part of the entire Russian army is now devoted to this offensive”clarified Volodymyr Zelensky.
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Russia confirmed on Tuesday 19 April that it was conducting a major military offensive in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, reaffirming its desire to “release” the Donbas. “The Russian army performs the tasks set by the Chief of the Armed Forces [Vladimir Poutine] for the special military operation”said Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who had not spoken publicly since the end of March.
Here is what we know about this new phase in the war in Ukraine, 55 days after the start of the invasion by the Russian army.
Fighting and shelling in several cities of Donbass
“It’s hell. The offensive has begun, the one we’ve been talking about for weeks,” declared on Facebook Serguiï Gaïdaï, the Ukrainian governor of Luhansk, while the conflict between government forces and pro-Russian separatists has been raging since 2014 throughout this area of the country.
“There are fights in Rubizhne and Popasna” and “incessant fighting in other peaceful cities”added Sergey Gaidaiclaiming that Kreminna was “unfortunately under the control of the orcs”, the pejorative nickname given to the Russian military. This city, which had around 18,000 inhabitants before the war, is located about fifty kilometers northeast of Kramatorsk, the Ukrainian capital of the Donbass coalfield. The adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, Oleksiy Arestovych, however assured that “the Russian occupiers had not yet conquered Kreminna” and that of“intense street fighting” were taking place there.
The Ukrainian military also warned on Monday evening of a high threat of shelling in the southern Mykolayiv region.
The intense battle of Mariupol continues
The Mariupol city council announced on Tuesday morning the bombing of the Azovstal factory and assured on Telegram that“at least 1,000 civilians – mostly women, children and the elderly – are in the underground shelters” of the metallurgical complex. According to the special envoy of France Télévisions Luc Lacroix, Azovstal is “the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance”. “Qwhen you get close, it’s a veritable deluge of fire. (…) This battle of Mariupol is still mobilizing Russian and separatist forces. It prevents them from directing all their firepower further north, always in the Donbass, where they want to carry out their big offensive”, he explains. “Our soldiers are still there. They will fight until the end”launched the Ukrainian Prime Minister, Denys Chmygal.
Total conquest of the port city of Mariupol would be a major strategic take for the Kremlin as it would allow the Russians to consolidate their coastal territorial gains along the Sea of Azov by linking the Donbass, partly controlled by their supporters, to the Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014.
Still “many civilians” entrenched
The Ukrainian authorities have been calling for the inhabitants of these regions to move west for several days. If this call has been heard, many residents have also chosen to stay. With the offensive intensifying, these evacuations are increasingly perilous. At least four civilians killed in Russian shelling while trying to flee Kreminna, governor says Serguiï Gaïdaï, who urged the population to evacuate the Luhansk region.
No evacuation corridor for civilians could be organized on Tuesday, for lack of agreement with the Russian side, and this, for the third consecutive day, regretted the Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister, Iryna Vereshchuk. She had asked Moscow the day before to open humanitarian corridors in Berdyansk and Mariupol. “Your refusal to open these humanitarian corridors will serve, in the future, as elements for legal proceedings against all those implicated in war crimes”she warned on Telegram.
Russia’s military presence strengthened
According to a senior US Department of Defense official (in English)Russia increased by “eleven battalions” in one week its military presence in eastern and southern Ukraine, bringing the total of battalions in the country to 76, 12 of which are still mobilized in Mariupol. According to the same official, about 22 battalions in northern Ukraine are probably being resupplied and re-equip. These units are composed of air defense weapons, armour, tactical vehicles, artillery, helicopters and elements of military engineering and logistical support.
“The enemy is continuing the transfer of arms and military equipment to Ukraine from central and eastern regions of the Russian Federation”, said Tuesday the staff of the Ukrainian army. Divisions of Tor anti-aircraft missiles were transferred to the Kharkiv region (northeast) and S-400 and S-300 anti-aircraft systems were deployed in the Russian region of Belgorod, near the border with Ukraine , according to the same source.
Vladimir Putin needs results by May 9
“The Liberation Plan of the People’s Republics [autoproclamées] of Donetsk and Luhansk is implemented”, in accordance with the will of the Kremlin, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday. Why launch this offensive in these separatist territories now? After failing to bring down the capital, kyiv, “Vladimir Putin and the Russian Federation need to show some victory after the failures suffered”estimated Tuesday morning, on franceinfo, Valéria Faure-Muntian, LREM deputy and president of the France-Ukraine friendship group in the Assembly.
Confronted with for almost two months to the fierce resistance of the Ukrainians, the Russian president wants to obtain progress before the military parade of May 9, marking the Soviet victory over the Nazis, in 1945. “There is a sense of urgency, because the Kremlin wants, for political reasons, a victory to be presented quickly to its population, in particular to justify the losses”underlined in The world Vincent Tourret, researcher at the Foundation for Strategic Research.
“Vladimir Putin is playing his all in this offensive” and therefore has “need to get that achievement”, analyzed Monday on franceinfo General Jérôme Pellistrandi, editor-in-chief of the review National Defense. “It’s going to be an old world war with artillery and shooting everywhere (…) It’s going to be very, very violent, because there, the Russian army can no longer retreat”also predicted, in early April, General Dominique Trinquand.
US boosts arms shipments to Ukraine
In this context, the United States announced on Monday that the first shipments of their new military aid ($800 million) to Ukraine had just arrived at the country’s borders. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said soldiers deployed on NATO’s eastern flank since the start of the Russian invasion will begin “in the next few days” to train Ukrainian soldiers in the handling of M777 Howitzer guns, latest-generation artillery pieces that the United States has decided to hand over to the Ukrainian army for the first time.
Even if their handling is not fundamentally different from that of artillery with which the Ukrainian army is familiar, these guns use 155 mm shells, used by NATO countries, while Ukraine does not yet have than 152 mm shells, of Russian manufacture. US President Joe Biden will also attend a meeting on Tuesday devoted to the Russian offensive in Ukraine.