Ukrainian service members ride a BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicle, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, near the frontline town of Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine February 9, 2023. (REUTERS)
KYIV – Russia struck power facilities across Ukraine with missiles on Friday, the day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy concluded a tour of Western capitals, as Ukrainian officials said a long-awaited Russian offensive was under way in the east.
Ukraine’s air force said 61 of a total of 71 Russian missiles had been shot down. But Energy Minister German Galushchenko said Russia had hit power facilities in six regions with missiles and drones, causing blackouts across most of Ukraine.
Russia has repeatedly attacked civilian infrastructure far from the front lines over the last four months, leaving millions of urban Ukrainians without power, heat or water for days at a time in the middle of winter.
The barrages have often followed Ukrainian diplomatic or battlefield advances.
This one came as Zelenskiy ended a tour of London, Paris and Brussels with standing ovations ringing in his ears, though no public promises of the fighter jets he was asking for.
Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko said 10 Russian missiles had been shot down over the Ukrainian capital after air raid sirens blared across the country during the morning rush hour and officials urged weary civilians to heed them and shelter.
European Council President Charles Michel said the attacks were indiscriminate and constituted war crimes.
“The EU and its member states stand by Ukraine and all Ukrainians. And will further speed up the provision of military equipment, including air defence,” he tweeted.
Russia denies targeting civilians and says the facilities it attacks are relevant to Kyiv’s war effort.
RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE
Ukraine has been bracing itself for a new Russian offensive in the belief that, after months of reverses, President Vladimir Putin wants to tout a battlefield success before the anniversary of the invasion he launched on Feb. 24.
Putin will give his delayed annual showcase address to parliament, akin to the U.S. president’s State of the Union speech, on Feb. 21. That was the date last year when he recognised the breakaway Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent, a prelude to invading.
The complete capture of those provinces, among four that Russia subsequently claimed to have annexed, would let Putin assert that one of his main priorities had been achieved.
Moscow’s main recent focus has been the small city of Bakhmut, with a pre-war population of around 70,000 that has mostly fled, in the swath of Donetsk outside Russia’s grasp.
After months of static artillery battles that have become known to both sides as the “meat grinder”, Russian forces, including the Wagner private army which has recruited tens of thousands of convicts with a promise of pardons, have finally begun to encircle the city.
Britain’s Defence Ministry said Wagner forces appeared to have advanced two to three km around the north of Bakhmut since Tuesday – a remarkably rapid push in a battle where front lines have barely moved for months.
It said they were now threatening the main western access road to Bakhmut although a Ukrainian military analyst said supplies were still getting through.
VUHLEDAR
While Wagner has bolstered its numbers with prisoners, Russia’s regular army is now able to deploy many of the 300,000 or more men enlisted in a forced mobilisation late last year.
Britain also said Russian forces had made some advances near Vuhledar, a strategically important Ukrainian-held bastion at the intersection of the southern and eastern fronts.
But the British report said the limited Russian gains there had most likely come at a high cost in inexperienced units, including at least 30 Russian armoured vehicles abandoned in one failed assault.
The Ukrainian positions in Vuhledar have held since the start of the war as a lynchpin for the front lines, and this week’s assault has been branded as a costly fiasco by some pro-war Russian military bloggers. Grey Zone, a semi-official Wagner channel on Telegram, said that “a disaster is unfolding around Vuhledar, and it is unfolding again and again”.
Reuters could not verify the battlefield reports.
Asked on Ukrainian television if he agreed that the Russian offensive had already begun, Pavlo Krylenko, governor of the Donetsk region, said on Thursday: “Yes, definitely.”
Moldova accused Russia of firing missiles through its air space and summoned Moscow’s ambassador. Romania, a NATO member, denied Ukrainian reports that one of the Russian missiles had also flown over Romanian air space.
Throughout the war, Ukraine has worked as hard at capturing Western attention and support as it has on the battlefield.
It wants to bar Russian athletes from the 2024 Olympic Games, a demand that Lithuania’s sports minister said received backing on Friday from a group of 35 countries including the United States, Germany, France, Britain and Japan. International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach wants Russians to be allowed to compete under a neutral flag.
Ukraine plans its own major military counteroffensive in the coming months to reclaim more of the nearly one-fifth of Ukrainian territory that Russia occupies.
But it appears likely to wait until it has received at least some of the new weapons, including hundreds of battle tanks and armoured vehicles, promised lately by the West.