Kyiv, Ukraine –
Russia hit Ukrainian cities with missiles, rockets and suicide drones, with one attack reportedly killing 25 people, as it moved on Friday to annex Ukrainian territory to Russia and bring it under the protection of Moscow’s nuclear umbrella, opening a internationally condemned phase of the seven month war.
But even as it prepared to celebrate the incorporation of four occupied Ukrainian regions, the Kremlin was on the verge of another painful defeat on the battlefield. Russian and Western analysts reported the imminent Ukrainian encirclement of the eastern city of Lyman. Retaking the city could open the way for Ukraine to penetrate deep into one of the regions Russia is absorbing in a move widely condemned as illegal.
The reported salvos of Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities added up to the heaviest bombardment Russia has unleashed in weeks. Analysts’ warnings followed that Russian President Vladimir Putin was likely to draw further on his dwindling stockpile of precision weapons and increase attacks as part of a strategy to escalate the war to the point of destroying the Western support for Ukraine.
The Kremlin preceded its scheduled annexation ceremonies on Friday with another warning to Ukraine that it should not fight to recapture the four regions. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow would consider a Ukrainian attack on the seized territory as an act of aggression against Russia itself.
The annexations are Russia’s attempt to engrave its achievements in stone, at least on paper, and scare Ukraine and its Western backers with the prospect of escalating conflict unless they back down, which they show no signs of doing. . The Kremlin paved the way for land grabs with “referendums,” sometimes at gunpoint, that Ukraine and its Western backers universally rejected as rigged farces.
“It seems quite pathetic. The Ukrainians are doing something, taking steps in the real material world, while the Kremlin is building a kind of virtual reality, unable to respond in the real world,” the former Kremlin speechwriter turned analyst said. politician Abbas Gallyamov.
“People understand that politics is now on the battlefield,” he added. “The important thing is who is going forward and who is going back. In that sense, the Kremlin cannot offer anything comforting to the Russians.”
A recent Ukrainian counteroffensive backed by Western-supplied weapons has deprived Moscow of dominating its destiny on military battlefields. His control of the Luhansk region appears increasingly shaky as Ukrainian forces make inroads there, with the pincer assault on Lyman. Ukraine also still has a large foothold in the neighboring Donetsk region.
Luhansk and Donetsk, wracked by fighting since separatists declared independence in 2014, form the broader Donbas region of eastern Ukraine that Putin has long promised, but has so far failed, to make fully Russian. Peskov said that both Donetsk and Luhansk will join Russia in full on Friday.
All of Kherson and parts of Zaporizhzhia, two other regions that were being prepared for annexation, were recently occupied in the initial phase of the invasion. It is unclear whether the Kremlin will declare all or just part of that occupied territory as Russian. Peskov said nothing in a call Friday with reporters.
In the capital of the Zaporizhzhia region, anti-aircraft missiles that Russia has repurposed as ground-attack weapons rained down Friday on people waiting in cars to cross into Russian-occupied territory so they could bring relatives back to the front lines, the deputy. said the head of the presidential office of Ukraine Kyrylo Tymoshenko.
The attorney general’s office said 25 people were killed and 50 wounded. The attack left deep impact craters and sent shrapnel through the lined-up vehicles of the humanitarian convoy, killing its passengers. Nearby buildings were demolished. Garbage bags, blankets and, for one victim, a blood-soaked towel were used to cover the bodies.
Russian-installed officials in Zaporizhzhia blamed Ukrainian forces for the attack, but provided no evidence.
Russian attacks were also reported in the city of Dnipro. Regional Governor Valentyn Reznichenko said at least one person was killed and five others injured by Russian Iskander missiles that hit a transport company, destroying buses and also damaging high-rise buildings.
Ukraine’s air force said the southern cities of Mykolaiv and Odessa were also hit again with Iranian-supplied suicide drones that Russia has increasingly deployed in recent weeks, apparently to avoid losing more pilots who are not in control of the skies. from Ukraine.
Putin was expected to deliver a major speech at the Kremlin ceremony to bring Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia into Russia. The Kremlin planned to have the region’s pro-Moscow administrators sign annexation treaties in the ornate St. George’s Hall of the palace in Moscow, which is Putin’s seat of power.
Putin also issued decrees recognizing the supposed independence of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, steps he already took in February for Luhansk and Donetsk and earlier for Crimea, seized from Ukraine in 2014.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called an emergency meeting of his National Security and Defense Council and denounced the latest spate of Russian attacks.
“The enemy is enraged and seeks revenge for our perseverance and its failures,” he posted on his Telegram channel. “You will definitely answer. For every Ukrainian life lost!”
The United States and its allies have promised to impose even more sanctions on Russia and offer billions of dollars in additional support to Ukraine as the Kremlin doubles down on the annexation playbook used for Crimea.
With Ukraine vowing to take back all occupied territory and Russia vowing to defend its gains and threatening to use nuclear weapons to do so, the two nations are on an increasingly escalating collision course.
That was underscored by the fighting over the city of Lyman, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) southeast of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.
A key node for Russian military operations in the disputed Donbas region, Lyman is a coveted prize in the Ukrainian counteroffensive that has seen spectacular success since its launch in late August. Retaking the city could allow Kyiv to push deeper into Russian-occupied Lugansk province, which would be a serious blow to Moscow after its “referendum” organized there.
The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said the city’s fall to Ukrainian forces “is imminent” unless Russia can stave off collapse with rapid reinforcements, which seems “highly unlikely.”