LONDON – Britain’s Defense Ministry says Russia’s stated focus on the separatist regions in eastern Ukraine “is likely to be a tacit acknowledgment that it is struggling to maintain more than one significant advance.”
In a daily war evaluation, the ministry said on Wednesday that Russian units suffering heavy losses had been forced to return to Belarus and Russia to reorganize and provide. It says such activities put further pressure on Russia’s already tense logistics and demonstrate the difficulties Russia is facing in reorganizing its units in forward areas within Ukraine.
However, it noted that the relocation would probably not mean relief for civilians in cities subjected to relentless Russian bombing. It expects Moscow to continue to compensate for reduced ground maneuvers by mass artillery and missile attacks.
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KEY DEVELOPMENTS IN THE WAR IN RUSSIA-UKRAINE:
– Russian promise to scale back in Ukraine arouses skepticism
UN food chief: Ukraine war over food crisis is the worst since World War II
– After Russian forces withdrewa crushed town breath
– Sanctioned oligarch Abramovich seen at Russia-Ukraine talks
– Pentagon may need more budget funding to help Ukraine
– Ukraine’s other struggle: Growing food for himself and the world
– Go to https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine for more coverage
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OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday night expressed skepticism about Russia’s announcement that it would significantly scale down military operations near Ukraine’s capital and a northern city.
“Yes, we can call those signals we hear in the negotiations positive. “But those signals do not stop the explosions of Russian shells,” Zelenskyy said. “Of course we see the risks. Of course we see no basis for trusting the words uttered by those or other representatives of the state who continue to fight for our destruction.”
Negotiations are expected to resume on Wednesday, five weeks after what turned into a bloody war of attrition, with thousands dead and nearly 4 million Ukrainians fleeing the country.
“Ukrainians are not naive people,” Zelenskyy said. “Ukrainians have already learned during the 34 days of invasion and during the past eight years of war in the Donbas that you can only trust concrete results.”
Ukraine’s delegation to the conference, which was held in Istanbul, set out a framework according to which the country would declare itself neutral and its security would be guaranteed by a variety of other nations.
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Ukraine’s UN Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya told the UN Security Council on Tuesday that “Russia’s demilitarization is well under way.
Since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, Kyslytsya said the Russian occupiers had lost more than 17,000 military personnel, more than 1,700 armored vehicles and nearly 600 tanks.
He also said Russia had also lost 300 artillery systems, 127 aircraft and 129 helicopters, nearly 100 rocket launcher systems, 54 air defense systems and seven ships.
Kyslytsya said it was “an unprecedented blow to Moscow, where the numbers of Soviet casualties in Afghanistan are fading in comparison.”
Earlier Tuesday, Russia announced that it would significantly scale down military operations near Ukraine’s capital and a northern city, as the outlines of a possible agreement to end the nagging war came into view in the latest round of talks.
Negotiations are expected to resume on Wednesday, five weeks after what turned into a bloody war of attrition, with thousands dead and nearly 4 million Ukrainians fleeing the country.
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Ukrainian military officials said they distrusted Russia’s announced withdrawal from around Kiev and Chernihiv.
Earlier Tuesday, Russia announced that it would significantly scale down military operations near Ukraine’s capital and a northern city, as the outlines of a possible agreement to end the nagging war came into view in the latest round of talks.
“There are indications that the Russian forces are regrouping to focus their efforts on eastern Ukraine,” the Ukrainian general staff said in a statement late Tuesday. “At the same time, the so-called ‘withdrawal of troops’ is most likely a rotation of individual units and is aimed at misleading the Ukrainian military leadership” by creating the misconception that the Russians decided not to try to encircle Kiev.
Ukraine’s delegation to the conference, held in Istanbul, set out a framework according to which the country would declare itself neutral and its security would be guaranteed by a variety of other nations.
Negotiations are expected to resume on Wednesday, five weeks after what turned into a bloody war of attrition, with thousands dead and nearly 4 million Ukrainians fleeing the country.
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The UN food chief warns that the war in Ukraine “has created a catastrophe over and above a catastrophe” and will have a global impact “beyond anything we have seen since World War II” because farmers from the country breadbasket of the world is on the front lines and fighting Russia and already high food prices are skyrocketing.
David Beasley, executive director of the UN World Food Program, told the UN Security Council on Tuesday that his agency, which fed 125 million people before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, was already starting to reduce rations due to rising food, fuel and shipping costs for millions of families around the world. In war-torn Yemen, he said, 8 million people had just reduced their food allocation to 50% “and now we are looking at going to zero rations.”
The war in Ukraine is destroying the country and “turning the breadbasket of the world into breadlines” for millions of its people, Beasley said. But it is also devastating countries around the world such as Egypt which is 85% dependent on Ukrainian grain and Lebanon which was 81% dependent in 2020.
Ukraine and Russia produce 30% of the global wheat stock, 20% of the global maize stock and 75-80% of the sunflower seed oil.
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Russia and Ukraine have traded accusations over naval mines set in the Black Sea, threatening shipping.
The Russian army has claimed that the Ukrainian army used old naval mines to protect the coast from a Russian landing and some of them were ripped from their anchors by a storm and driven away.
The Russian col. genl. Mikhail Mizintsev reaffirmed on Tuesday that “the threat posed by Ukrainian mines drifting along the Black Sea coastline continues.”
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry responded in a statement on Tuesday, accusing Russia of using Ukrainian mines it seized after the 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and driving them away from “Ukraine in front of international partners”. discredit. “
The Turkish Ministry of Defense said on Saturday that a naval mine had been spotted near the Bosphorus and neutralized. It said the mine was of an old type, but did not say to whom it belonged.
The conflicting claims by Russia and Ukraine could not be independently verified.
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WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden said on Tuesday he was not yet convinced that Russia’s announcement that it would scale down military operations near the Ukrainian capital Kiev would lead to a fundamental shift in the war.
Speaking to Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong following bilateral talks in the White House, Biden said he was waiting to see what Russia had to offer in ongoing talks with Ukraine and how Moscow would re – adjust its troops’ presence.
U.S. and Western officials have expressed skepticism about Russia’s announcement earlier Tuesday that it would cut back on operations in an effort to boost confidence in ongoing talks between Ukrainian and Russian officials in Turkey.
“We’ll see,” Biden said. “I do not read anything in it until I see what their actions are.”
White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield later expressed even greater skepticism, saying the administration viewed any move by Russian forces as a “redeployment and not a withdrawal” and “no one should be fooled by Russia’s announcement. “
