Ukraine braced itself Monday for a massive Russian assault on the country’s eastern Donbas region, which is set to become ground zero in a bloody conflict that shows no sign of stopping despite growing questions about whether Moscow can secure anything resembling the original victory it sought.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy again appealed for outside support as Russian forces regroup and reposition ahead of the Donbas campaign, which Pentagon officials said is likely to begin soon. U.S. defense officials said a large Russian convoy of troops, vehicles and equipment is headed toward the region, and Ukrainian officials urged civilians to flee the area or risk being caught in the crossfire.
Russia’s decision to pull its troops from northern Ukraine and abandon its effort to capture the capital of Kyiv has raised fears across Ukraine and the West that Moscow will double down on its strategy of targeting civilians and non-military targets in the more vulnerable east and south. Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer gave voice to those fears Monday in what he described as a “very direct, open and tough” meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Mr. Nehammer, the first leader of a European Union nation to visit Mr. Putin since the war began Feb. 24, said he confronted the Russian leader about alleged war crimes committed by Russian troops in the city of Bucha and elsewhere across Ukraine, effectively warning the Kremlin against such tactics in the coming Donbas battle. Mr. Putin’s aides has resolutely denied Russian guilt in the face of widespread condemnation globally.
“All those who are responsible will be held to account,” the chancellor said of Russia’s brutal, indiscriminate tactics so far in the six weeks of fighting.
The southern port city of Mariupol also has been the site of carnage and devastation. The city’s mayor, Vadym Boychenko, told the Associated Press on Monday that corpses have been “carpeted through the streets of our city.” He estimated the death toll at about 10,000, though he conceded it actually could be much higher.
Russian shelling was blamed for civilian deaths Monday in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, and in Donetsk, though aides to Mr. Zelenskyy said in Kyiv that some 150,000 residents of Mariupol apparently are being allowed by Russian forces to leave the beleaguered city.
Mariupol is key to Russia’s ambitions in Ukraine. Securing the city could allow Russia to link the Crimean Peninsula, which it forcibly annexed in 2014, with the breakaway pro-Moscow Donbas enclaves in Donetsk and Luhansk. Mr. Putin has formally recognized those two territories as independent “republics,” though Ukraine and most of the world have not acknowledged those claims.
The Donbas region was the site for a grinding civil war between separatists and the Kyiv government, a conflict that had gone on for eight years before Mr. Putin’s decision to invade in February.
Bleak picture
Set to become the stage of perhaps the most intense fighting of the invasion so far, officials in Luhansk and Donetsk painted a bleak picture of what’s to come for civilians.
“Those that wanted to leave have already left, while now many are left in bomb shelters who are perhaps frightened to come out of the shelters, or scared to lose their possessions,” Luhansk Gov. Serhiy Gaidai said Monday, according to Reuters.
In the capital of Kyiv, now returning to a semblance of normalcy as besieging Russian forces have been driven away, Mr. Zelenskyy framed the looming Donbas battle as a fight for the very existence of his country.
“Russia is aiming to eliminate Ukraine independence and separate the country. It is trying to eliminate the culture and language of the Ukrainian nation,” he said.
Mr. Zelenskyy’s calls for more help have resonated in Washington, where a growing chorus of lawmakers say the Biden administration should send more guns, anti-tank weapons, drones and other weapons of war in the hopes of dealing Mr. Putin a sound defeat. Russian forces already are reeling from their failed attempt to take Kyiv, having suffered thousands of casualties and lost hundreds of tanks amid a series of military missteps and low morale among its troops.
British intelligence officials said over the weekend that the Kremlin has resorted to calling back discharged soldiers in an effort to backfill its growing manpower shortage. Mr. Putin on Sunday also shook up his military leadership, installing Gen. Aleksandr V. Dvornikov — known for his brutal tactics during Russia’s campaign in Syria – to oversee the Donbas attack.
But even with the full weight of Moscow’s war machine now pointed at the Donbas, Ukraine also may benefit from Russia’s change in strategy. Ukraine can redirect some of its forces and equipment away from the northern regions of its country toward the east, effectively reducing the conflict to a single-front war.
Furthermore, military analysts say that Ukrainian soldiers already have proven their ability to slow down the much larger Russian force.
“The Ukrainians have been for eight years — and still are — fighting over [Donbas],” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters Monday. “And they show no signs of being willing to give that territory up.”
Private security analysts say that guerilla warfare tactics and insurgent assaults on Russian troops could effectively doom Mr. Putin’s effort to secure a significant foothold in the Donbas beyond what pro-Russian forces already controlled before the war.
“Putin’s prospects for any sort of victory appear increasingly pyrrhic,” former U.S. Army cavalry scout Scott Sweetow wrote in a recent piece for the website Warontherocks.com.
“Whether or not history assesses the Russian adventure as a loss, Russia is going to pay a terrible cost in dead soldiers and billions of dollars in destroyed equipment — a toll that is rising daily. Each insurgency has the potential advantage of copying techniques from those that preceded it,” he wrote.
The growing toll of war on Mr. Putin’s army seemingly could offer Ukraine a much stronger hand in cease-fire negotiations. Top Biden administration officials said over the weekend that such leverage is the central U.S. goal.
“We will continue to take every step we possibly can to help the Ukrainians succeed on the battlefield and to improve their position at the negotiating table,” White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN’s “State of the Union” program on Sunday.
Russian officials said Monday they remain open to peace talks, though the Kremlin has given indications it has no intention of ceasing its attacks even during negotiations.
“I see no reasons for not continuing [offensive operations,] although the Ukrainian side tends to be evasive, sometimes doing U-turns and rejecting what it proposed a couple of days before. But we are persistent and patient,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, according to Russia’s state-run TASS News Agency.
• This article is based in part on wire-service reports.