Smoke rises from Russian attacks on the city of Rubizhne in the Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine, April 18, 2022 (AFP)

EA on BBC: The Next Phase of Putin’s War on Ukraine

Monday’s Coverage: Mariupol’s Defenders Ignore Russian “Surrender or Die” Ultimatum

UPDATE 1530 GMT:

Ukraine Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said more than 76 Ukrainian prisoners of war — more than 60 soldiers, including 10 officers, and 16 civilians — have been released in an exchance with Russia. returned in an exchange with Moscow.

She did not say how many Russians were involved.

UPDATE 1521 GMT:

Russian businessman Oleg Tinkov a former billionaire banker under UK sanctions, has criticized Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. He wrote on Facebook:

I don’t see ANY beneficiary of this crazy war! Innocent people and soldiers are dying.

The generals, waking up with a hangover, realised that they had a shitty army. How can the army be good, if everything else in the country is shit and mired in nepotism and servility?…

Of course there are morons who draw Z, but morons in any country are 10%. 90% of Russians are AGAINST this war!

Tinkov asked the “collective West” to “please give Mr Putin a clear exit to save his face and stop this massacre. Please be more rational and humanitarian”.

UPDATE 1432 GMT:

The World Health Organization has condemned the numerous Russian assaults on health care facilities. Its head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tweeted:

UPDATE 1428 GMT:

Defenders of #Mariupol in southeast Ukraine have defied another Russian ultimatum to surrender.

The fighters are holding out in the Azovstal iron and steel plant. Russian forces commanded them to give up their arms by noon local time (0900 GMT).

UPDATE 1418 GMT:

Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov, says Russian forces have carried out “non-stop bombardment of civilian districts” in Ukraine’s second city since Sunday.

The enemy is targeting civilians. Many people are wounded and some unfortunately dead. In the past day and a half, we’ve had 15 people killed and more than 50 wounded. Those 15 killed was just in one attack.

UPDATE 1405 GMT:

Russian troops have occupied the town of Kreminna in eastern Luhansk in east Ukraine.

Kreminna, with more than 18,000 people, is the first town to fall to the Russian offensive outside Moscow’s proxy areas in the Donbas. It is about 350 miles southeast of Kyiv.

Serhiy Gaidai, the governor of the Luhansk region, said:

Kreminna is under the control of the “Orcs”. They have entered the city.

Our defenders had to withdraw. They have entrenched themselves in new positions and continue to fight the Russian army.

He added, “It is impossible to calculate the number of dead among the civilian population. We have official statistics – about 200 dead – but in reality there are many more.”

UPDATE 0845 GMT:

Russian forces have blocked all humanitarian corridors for the third day in a row, according to Ukraine Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.

UPDATE 0655 GMT:

French President Emmanuel Macron says his dialogue with Vladimir Putin has been suspended after Russia’s mass killings of Ukrainian civilians.

“Since the massacres we have discovered in Bucha and in other towns, the war has taken a different turn, so I did not speak to him again directly since, but I don’t rule out doing so in the future”, Macron said before Sunday’s second round of the French Presidential election.

Asked why he had not seen President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Ukraine’s capital, Macron said, “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 this support….If I go to Kyiv, it will be to make a difference.”

France has offered a sign of support by calling for a European Union embargo on imports of Russian oil.

Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said Macron wants the measure, “I hope that in the weeks to come we will convince our European partners to stop importing Russian oil.”

UPDATE 0455 GMT:

A plane from Moscow, collecting expelled Russian diplomats from Spain and then going to Greece, made a forced 15,163 km (9,400 mile) detour because of a European Union ban on Russian flight bans.

Spain and Greece granted a one-time exception for the plane to enter their airspace, but other EU countries maintained the ban. The total distance of the flights just short of the world’s longest route between Singapore and New York.

Russia escalates its air and ground attacks in eastern Ukraine, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy declares that the next phase of Vladimir Putin’s invasion is underway.

In his late-night video address to the nation, Zelenskiy said a “significant part” of the Russian army has been deployed to take control of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions adjacent to areas held by Russian proxies since 2014.

“Now we can already state that the Russian troops have begun the battle for the Donbas, for which they have been preparing for a long time,” he announced.

Monday began with the news that Russian forces had entered Kreminna in the eastern Luhansk region, following weeks of bombardment.

“The Russians entered Kreminna. Street fights began,” wrote Serhiy Haidai, head of the Luhansk regional military administration.

He said that the Russians have “a huge amount of equipment” and that flight from the town is now impossible.

We planned the evacuation, literally along forest paths, so that the people would not come under fire. But overnight the situation changed. While fighting [is] in the city, it is unrealistic to count the civilians who remain there.

Shelling in the eastern Donetsk region killed four people.

An official in the US Defense Department said 76 Russian battalion tactical groups in the Donbas region of Ukraine and in the southeast, including about 12 in and near the besieged city of Mariupol. He said 11 of the groups were added in recent days, and another 22 are probably being resupplied and refitted just to the north of the country.

Russia launched its invasion on February 24 with about 125 BTGs. It lost about 20% of the force as it failed in its initial operations to seize the capital Kyiv and much of Ukraine.

Zelenskiy’s Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak said Ukrainian forces would prevail in “the second phase of the war”, telling Ukrainians, “Believe in our army, it is very strong.”

Source: BBC

Ukrainian and American officials said Mariupol, on the Sea of Azov in southeast Ukraine, still had not fallen to the Russian assault and siege. Fighting continues in the Azovstal iron and steel plant, with about 1,000 civilians, many of them women with children and the elderly, hiding in underground shelters beneath the complex.

In western Ukraine, Russian missile attacks killed seven people and injured at least 11, including a child, in strikes on military infrastructure and on a garage and tire workshop.

Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said, “What we see today is genocide. It’s a deliberate action by the aggressor to kill peaceful civilians. All our cities and villages are in the same situation.”

Map: Institute for the Study of War