Russia began to deploy in eastern and southern Ukraine some troops that withdrew from the north two weeks ago to prepare its major offensive in Donbas, and issued a warning to kyiv with a bombardment near the capital hours after losing Moskva, its flagship in the Black Sea.
Russia “increases the air group and is establishing command and control systems” in the eastern operational zone, said the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
According to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s troops amount to 44,11 in Donbas, and the main objective of Russia is to surround them.
The US has observed a transfer of capabilities to Donbas, such as some artillery units, air support and command and control systems.
“There are 65 Russian battalion tactical groups (BTG) in Ukraine and all are centering on the south and east. The Russians “will try to introduce more BTG in the coming days,” a senior Pentagon official said on Thursday on condition of anonymity.
The Institute for the Study of Warfare (ISW), based in the USA, affirms that units of the 2nd Combined Arms Army, which had withdrawn from the Chernigov axis, would be deploying around Severodonetsk, north of Lugansk.
If this movement is confirmed, he adds, it would be the first detachment withdrawn from the north to be relocated to the east.
Donetsk suffers heavy bombing
Directly on the battlefield, the Donetsk region suffers from heavy shelling.
Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko stated in his account from Telegram that “almost all the towns along the front line are being attacked by the Russian armed horde”.
“The Russians are destroying Donetsk”, warned, and gave Márinka as an example, that, he said, “since the beginning of the large-scale Russian invasion it has been under practically constant fire.”
Since 16 February, he added, civilians have died 11 and the result injured 48 in this city, three schools were damaged, a kindergarten, three administrative buildings, 13 high-rise buildings, 322 private houses and 26 companies.
In the southeast, in Mariupol, Russian forces attacked the city with long-range missiles, using this resource for the first time since the war began, said Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk.
The Mayor’s Office also denounced “a new level of ‘cleansing’ of the occupants”, after accusing Russia this week of having deployed 13 mobile crematoria in the city.
Residents who and are still in the besieged city on the shores of the Sea of Azov reported how “the Russian troops have begun the process of exhuming the bodies that were buried in the courtyards of residential buildings” .
Russia, in turn, announced the complete liberation of the Ilyich metallurgical plant, where some of the soldiers of the 26th Ukrainian Marine Brigade surrendered on Wednesday.
However , Motuzyanyk assured that “active fighting continues near the plant and in the port area”, which Russia also claimed this week to have taken.
On the southern front, in Kherson, where Russia occupies a large part of the region, and in Mykolaiv, Russian troops continued to launch missiles and artillery at different points in the area.
In In general, “the operational zone of the Black Sea remains tense”, according to the Southern Operational Command of Ukraine.
“Having received a crushing defeat in both naval personnel and imperial ambitions, the enemy forces frantically sought revenge, strengthening aerial reconnaissance, intensifying missile strikes, sabotage and propaganda activities”, he indicated.
A blow to Russia and a victory for the morale of the Ukrainians
It is about a reference to the blow suffered by Russia with the sinking of the missile cruiser Moskva (Moscow), the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
The Ministry of Defense of Russia admitted last night that the cruise ship had sunk, although he assured that he lost the ship due to an accidental fire that caused the detonation of its ammunition and not by Ukrainian Neptun missiles.
Previously, on 24 March, The Russian Alligator-class landing ship Saratov was also damaged, according to London.
“It is prob It is likely that both events lead Russia to review its maritime posture in the Black Sea”, British intelligence indicated today.
For the ISW, the sinking of the Russian ship is a “blessing for Ukrainian morale, as a symbol of Ukraine’s capabilities to counterattack the Russian Navy”.
But, he adds, “it is unlikely to be a decisive blow to Russian operations in general”.
Double message from Russia to Ukraine
Hours after losing Moskva, Russia sent two warning messages in one to Ukraine: that it has not lost the ability to launch missiles since the sea and that it can easily reach kyiv.
At dawn it launched Kalibr missiles from the sea against an industrial plant in 13 kilometers from the capital and destroyed the workshops that “produced and repaired long-range and medium-range anti-aircraft missile systems, as well as anti-ship missiles,” such as the Nep tun.
The Defense Ministry spokesman, Igor Konashénkov, explained the bombing as a response to alleged Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory, such as yesterday’s in the border regions of Belgorod and Kursk.
“The number and scale of missile attacks against targets in kyiv will increase in response to any attack of a terrorist nature or sabotage on Russian territory by the nationalist regime in kyiv,” he noted.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) pointed out that interceptions of Russian telephone conversations would confirm that “Russia itself shot at the town of Klímovo” (in Belgorod), allegedly to “provoke” Ukraine.
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