Forty-seven days into its invasion of Ukraine, Russia is regrouping for one more battle for the Donbas—and has named a Russian normal identified for his brutality as head of operations in Ukraine.
Gen. Alexander Dvornikov has been referred to as “the Butcher of Syria” for the indiscriminate killing of civilians in Aleppo and Homs.
“Sadly, we will all anticipate that the identical brutal ways, that very same disregard for civilian life and civilian infrastructure, will most likely proceed as they now focus in a extra geographically confined space within the Donbas,” below Dvornikov, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby stated.
Russia has pulled scores of battalion tactical teams away from Kyiv and moved them into Belarus and Russia to be re-fit with personnel and provides, Kirby stated.
A brand new convoy of autos captured by satellite tv for pc imagery over the weekend “appears to be an early effort” to start reinforcing troops within the Donbas, Kirby stated. The pictures present a convoy roughly eight miles lengthy, made up of personnel carriers, artillery, and different autos, he stated.
Dvornikov was beforehand in control of Russian navy operations in southern Ukraine, which noticed extra progress than the models stymied within the North, however your complete Russian drive has confronted logistics points, an incapacity to conduct mixed arms operations, and morale points, and has additionally confronted a larger Ukrainian resistance than they’d deliberate for, Kirby stated.
Russian forces are nonetheless urgent on Mariupol, which is positioned on Ukraine’s jap shore, between Russian-occupied Crimea and Russian-occupied Donbas, which incorporates the breakaway areas Luhansk and Donetsk.
Mariupol has been below siege for weeks, and whereas Russian forces have been unable to take town, Russian state-controlled media outlet RIA Novosti reported Monday that Russian forces now management the port.
On Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy informed members of Korea’s normal meeting that “tens of hundreds” of civilians have been killed in Mariupol. The Ukrainian protection ministry reported that as of Monday greater than 19,500 Russian troops had been killed for the reason that begin of operations, although neither determine may very well be independently verified.
“Russia needs to dominate and believes it will probably do that in just one means,” Zelenskyy stated to the meeting, in a speech posted to his private Fb web site. “Sending its military that was introduced up in complete lawlessness to destroy all the pieces that permits different nations to dwell.”
A senior U.S. protection official who briefed reporters earlier Monday stated Russia’s push east and the already lengthy siege of Mariupol has officers involved that Russia’s brutality there’ll improve.
“We’re definitely bracing ourselves right here for some doubtlessly actually, actually, horrible outcomes,” the official stated.