The 40-mile-long column of Russian armor that’s been sitting outside of Kyiv since the first few days of the war is finally on the move, indicating the battle for the Ukrainian capital may soon begin in earnest.
Satellite photos show the massive column is spreading out and is now about 15 miles from the center of the Ukrainian capital. Some military experts believe the move by Russia’s armor will likely support an attempt to encircle Kyiv, the British ministry said.
But because the advance of the column was delayed, Ukraine’s forces have been able to fortify Kyiv, ensuring that any attempt to take the city will be a messy, bloody affair.
Ukraine’s military and volunteer forces have been preparing for a feared all-out assault. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko has said that about 2 million people, half the population of the metropolitan area, have left and that “every street, every house … is being fortified.”
As artillery pounded Kyiv’s northwestern outskirts, two columns of smoke – one black and one white — rose southwest of the capital after a strike on an ammunition depot in the town of Vaslkyiv caused hundreds of small explosions. A frozen food warehouse just outside the capital also was struck in an apparent effort to target Kyiv’s food supply.
Russia’s slow and grinding tightening of a noose around Kyiv and the bombardment of other population centers with artillery and air strikes mirror tactics that Russian forces have previously used in other campaigns, notably in Syria and Chechnya, to crush armed resistance.
Vladimir Putin is not going to care what Ukraine looks like after he achieves victory. If he has to level every major city to crush Ukraine’s resistance, he will do so. If a million people are going to starve because the Russian army has smashed Ukraine’s infrastructure, that’s immaterial to the ultimate goal of victory.
Related: Food Prices Up 20% Over the Past Year
Russian forces are deliberately targeting hospitals — just like they did in Syria.
The ongoing bombardment forced crews to stop digging trenches for mass graves, so the “dead aren’t even being buried,” the mayor said. An Associated Press photographer captured the moment when a tank appeared to fire directly on an apartment building, enveloping one side in a billowing orange fireball.
Russian forces have hit at least two dozen hospitals and medical facilities since they invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, according to the World Health Organization. Ukrainian officials reported Saturday that heavy artillery damaged a cancer hospital and several residential buildings in Mykolaiv, a city 489 kilometers (304 miles) west of Mariupol.
The hospital’s head doctor, Maksim Beznosenko, said several hundred patients were in the facility during the attack but no one was killed.
At the moment, Moscow is allowing a small number of weapons from NATO countries to make it through to the Ukrainian army. But if the war begins to go badly for Russia, it may lead to an attempt to interdict those supplies which could mean a confrontation with a NATO country like Poland.
A senior Russian diplomat warned that Moscow could target foreign shipments of military equipment to Ukraine. Speaking Saturday, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Moscow has warned the United States “that pumping weapons from a number of countries it orchestrates isn’t just a dangerous move, it’s an action that makes those convoys legitimate targets.”
As badly as the Russian army has performed in this war, the overwhelming advantage Moscow has in sheer numbers is grinding Ukraine’s resistance down. While Ukraine’s resistance is heroic, the end of the war is inevitable.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member