An injured man receives medical treatment at the scene of Russian shelling
(Picture: AP)Vladimir Putin’s forces launched more air strikes against Ukraine early on Tuesday as western leaders prepared to discuss sending more weapons to support the country’s fight against Russia.
A day after the Russian president was widely condemned for unleashing a barrage of missile attacks across the country, including on the capital Kyiv, Ukrainian officials reported more strikes including one on the south-eastern city of Zaporizhzhia.
The attacks came as the head of Britain’s GCHQ signals intelligence agency warned that Putin was becoming increasingly “desperate” as he runs out of troops, weapons and friends.
“We believe that Russia is running short of munitions, it’s certainly running short of friends and we have seen, because of the declaration for mobilisation, that it is running short of troops,” Sir Jeremy Fleming told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He added: “Russia, as we’ve seen in the dreadful attacks yesterday, still has a very capable military machine. It can launch weapons. It has deep, deep stocks and expertise. And yet, it is very broadly stretched in Ukraine.”
Separately, Ministry of Defence intelligence chiefs said Russia’s “increasingly factional” defence department could undermine attempts to revive its military operations in Ukraine under its new commander of joint forces, General Sergei Surovikin, known as “General Armageddon”.
In its daily intelligence briefing, the UK’s Ministry of Defence said: “Surovikin’s appointment likely reflects an effort by the Russian national security community to improve the delivery of the operation. However, he will likely have to contest with an increasingly factional Russian MoD which is poorly resourced to achieve the political objectives it has been set in Ukraine.”
Amid fears that an increasingly cornered Putin could resort to nuclear weapons as he tries to recover ground lost to Ukraine’s successful counter offensive, GCHQ director Sir Jeremy said he hoped the UK would see “indicators” from Russia before any deployment of nuclear weapons, something which he said would be a “catastrophe”.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky was expected to ask for more advanced air defence and anti-missile systems when he joined the virtual call of G7 leaders later today.
Russia yesterday launched its biggest wave of attacks away from the front lines since the war started on February 24. As many as 301 settlements in the regions of Kyiv, Lviv, Sumy, Ternopil and Khmelnytsky remained without electricity this morning. President Putin said he ordered “massive” long-range strikes after accusing Ukraine of attacking the bridge linking Russia to annexed Crimea on Saturday. Mr Zelensky spoke to US president Joe Biden and Prime Minister Liz Truss yesterday and wrote on Telegram that air defence was the “No1 priority in our defence co-operation”.
And in their call later today, Ms Truss was expected to urge the G7 to “stay the course” in the battle against Putin. “The overwhelming international support for Ukraine’s struggle stands in stark opposition to the isolation of Russia on the international stage,” she was expected to say.
“Their bravery in the face of the most brutal acts of violence has earned the people of Ukraine global admiration. Nobody wants peace more than Ukraine. And for our part, we must not waver one iota in our resolve to help them win it.”
But Russia’s deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said western military aid to Kyiv, the training of personnel in Nato countries, and the provision of real-time satellite data allowing the Ukrainian military to designate targets for artillery strikes have “increasingly drawn western nations into the conflict”.
