Russian offensive widens as US imposes new trade sanctions

LVIV (AP):

Russia widened its offensive in Ukraine on Friday, striking airfields in the west and a major industrial city in the east, while the huge armoured column that had been stalled for over a week outside Kyiv was on the move again, spreading out near the capital.

Military analysts were divided over whether the manoeuvring by the Russian convoy signalled the imminent start of a siege of Kyiv or was just an effort by the troops to disperse to more protected positions.

On the economic and political front, the US and its allies moved to further isolate and sanction the Kremlin. President Joe Biden announced the US will dramatically downgrade its trade status with Russia and also ban imports of Russian seafood, alcohol and diamonds. The move to revoke Russia’s ‘most favoured nation’ status was taken in coordination with the European Union and Group of Seven countries.

“The free world is coming together to confront Putin,” Biden said.

On the ground, the Kremlin’s forces appeared to be trying to regroup and regain momentum after encountering heavier losses and stiffer resistance than anticipated over the past two weeks. Britain’s Ministry of Defence said Russia is trying to “reset and re-posture” its troops, gearing up for operations against Kyiv.

“It’s ugly already, but it’s going to get worse,” said Nick Reynolds, a warfare analyst at Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank.

With the invasion in its 16th day, Russian President Vladimir Putin said there had been “certain positive developments” in Russia-Ukraine talks, but gave no details.

For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces had “reached a strategic turning point,” though he did not elaborate.

“It’s impossible to say how many days we will still need to free our land, but it is possible to say that we will do it,” he said via video from Kyiv.

WORKING TO ESTABLISH HUMANITARIAN CORRIDORS

He also said authorities were working on establishing 12 humanitarian corridors and trying to ensure food, medicine and other basics get to people across the country. Thousands of civilians and soldiers on both sides are believed to have been killed in the invasion.

So far, the Russians have made the biggest advances on cities in the east and south – including in Mariupol, the heavily bombarded seaport where civilians scrounged for food and fuel amid a harrowing 10-day-old siege – while struggling in the north and around Kyiv.

On Friday, Putin’s forces continued to launch air strikes in urban areas such as Kyiv, Kharkiv and Mariupol, while also pounding targets away from the main battle zones.

Russia said it used high-precision, long-range weapons to put military airfields in Lutsk and Ivano-Frankivsk in the west “out of action”. The attack on Lutsk killed four Ukrainian servicemen, the mayor said.

Russian airstrikes also targeted for the first time Dnipro, a major industrial hub in the east and Ukraine’s fourth-largest city, with about one million people. One person was killed, Ukraine said.

In images of the aftermath released by Ukraine’s emergency agency, firefighters doused a flaming building, and ash fell on bloodied rubble. Smoke billowed over shattered concrete where buildings once stood.

In another potentially ominous development for Ukraine, new satellite photos appeared to show that the massive Russian convoy outside the capital had split up and fanned out into towns and forests.

Howitzers were towed into firing position, and armoured units were seen in towns near the Antonov Airport north of the city, according to Maxar Technologies, the company that produced the images.

The 40-mile (64-kilometre) line of tanks and other vehicles had massed outside Kyiv early last week. But its advance had appeared to stall amid reports of food and fuel shortages, muddy roads and attacks by Ukrainian troops with anti-tank missiles.

Mathieu Boulegue, a researcher at the London think tank Chatham House, said the redeployment means the long-awaited battle for Kyiv is just hours or days away. He predicted a drawn-out siege, not an immediate storming of the city.

“This is going to be a very long battle of attrition. This is going to be an atrociously casualty-heavy battle and a siege, the likes of which we have rarely seen in modern history,” Boulegue said.