The “new phase” of the war is well underway. Russia launched a series of strikes on eastern Ukraine, the country’s eastern industrial heartland, on Tuesday and called on Ukrainians to “lay down their arms”.
Updated at 0:08
Russia announced on Tuesday that it had carried out a dozen airstrikes and missiles in eastern Ukraine. These attacks inaugurate the beginning of a “new phase” of the war, according to the head of Russian diplomacy, Sergei Lavrov. For the Ukrainian capital, this is the beginning of “the battle for Donbass” feared for weeks. The fighting “is incessant” in several cities, “it’s hell”, for his part declared the Ukrainian governor of the Luhansk region, Serguiï Gaïdaï, who called on the inhabitants to flee.
Moscow calls on Ukrainians to “lay down their arms”
The Russian Ministry of Defense has called on the entire Ukrainian army to “lay down their arms” and the last defenders of Mariupol to cease their “senseless resistance”. Ukrainian troops have been defending the city’s port for seven weeks.
Third day without civilian evacuation corridor
For the third day in a row, no corridor to evacuate civilians was organized on Tuesday, for lack of agreement with the Russian side, announced Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk. In Mariupol, “the Russians refuse to open a corridor for the exit of civilians in the direction of Berdiansk”, she added. For its part, the Russian army claimed to have opened a corridor to evacuate the Ukrainian soldiers present in the industrial zone of Mariupol, but deplored that “no one” took it.
PHOTO FELIPE DANA, ASSOCIATED PRESS
A woman walks past a building damaged by Russian strikes in Kharkiv.
Bombings in Kharkiv
At least 3 people were killed and 21 others injured Tuesday in new Russian bombardments on Kharkiv, according to local authorities. The strikes targeted four residential neighborhoods, regional governor Oleg Sinegoubov said, adding that “the intensity of shelling in Kharkiv has increased”. The governor implored its inhabitants to take shelter and not go out into the streets.
Ukraine received fighter jets
Ukraine has received fighter jets and spare parts to strengthen its air force, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said on Tuesday, declining to specify their number or the countries that provided the aircraft. For more than a month, Western countries had nevertheless refused to supply heavy weapons to Kyiv to avoid an escalation of the conflict. These are probably Russian-made MiG-29s, which Ukraine has been asking for since the start of the conflict and which some Eastern European countries have.
The Russian army has lost power
For its part, the Russian military has lost about 25% of the combat power it sent to Ukraine at the start of the war, a US official said. Currently, Russia needs to re-equip ground combat units to insert them back into Ukraine, he said. The official said the Russians added two more battalion tactical groups in the past 24 hours, for a total of 78. That’s an increase of 13 from last week.
PHOTO EFREM LUKATSKY, ASSOCIATED PRESS
A tank abandoned by Russian troops in Moshchun, near Kyiv
Washington prepares to increase aid
The United States is set to approve new military aid to Ukraine amounting to 800 million US dollars, less than a week after a previous announcement of the same amount, several American media reported on Tuesday.
Guterres wants a ‘humanitarian break’
UN Secretary-General António Guterres, meanwhile, is calling for a four-day halt to fighting in Ukraine, starting Thursday, to coincide with Easter celebrations by the Orthodox Churches. Orthodox Christians will celebrate Easter on Sunday, April 24, a week after Catholic Christians. Mr Guterres said the aim was to allow the evacuation of civilians from “current or planned areas of confrontation” and the delivery of more humanitarian aid to areas in desperate need, such as Mariupol, Donetsk, Luhansk and Kherson. More than four million people in these areas need help, he said.
PHOTO ALEXEI ALEXANDROV, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Pro-Russian soldiers move through the besieged city of Mariupol.
Thousands of mercenaries alongside Russian forces
Between “10,000 and 20,000” Syrian and Libyan fighters and mercenaries from the Russian paramilitary company Wagner are currently fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine, a European official said on Tuesday. These men “have no vehicles or heavy weapons” and come to reinforce the Russian troops, indicated a person in charge for the journalists in Washington under the cover of anonymity. He says he has observed “transfers, from areas such as Syria and Libya, to the eastern region of Donbass”.
With Agence France-Presse and the Associated Press