Ukraine has urged civilians to leave the east of the country “while the opportunity still exists” before a massive Russian military assault that it expects in the coming days.
The deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, said the authorities would “not be able to help” residents who stayed behind once large-scale fighting erupted. She said the governors of the Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk regions were calling on people to move immediately to safer areas. “It has to be done now, because later people will be under fire and face the threat of death. There is nothing they will be able to do about it,” she posted on Telegram.
The deputy prime minister emphasised: “It is necessary to evacuate as long as this possibility exists. For now, it still exists.”
The Kremlin has said it intends to seize the entire Donetsk region, amid reports that Putin is keen to declare victory in Ukraine in time for 9 May, the annual commemoration of the Soviet defeat of Hitler in the second world war.
One western official said Putin would want to have an “announceable success” by then, which could create “some tension” with Russian commanders as exhausted forces were likely to be thrown into battle fairly soon in an attempt to gain ground in the east.
The new focus on the east follows the humiliating failure of Putin’s original apparent plan to seize the capital, Kyiv, overthrow the government of president Volodymyr Zelenskiy and subjugate most of Ukraine in a matter of days or weeks.
Instead, Russian troops who advanced on Kyiv were forced to withdraw to Belarus after shattering losses. The Kremlin has also pulled its forces out of the Sumy region after its advance there became bogged down.
According to revised estimates, 29 of Russia’s battalion tactical groups – the smallest operating unit of its forces – are now “combat non-effective”, from an invading force estimated to be at about 125 battalions, which comprises around 75% of Russia’s total army.
Nato and western analysts believe Russia is now determined to consolidate its gains in the south and south-east, with the Kremlin “reshaping its narrative” so that it can redefine its idea of victory.
It already controls a land corridor stretching from Mariupol along the sea of Azov to the southern Kherson province and to Crimea. Its next targets appear to be the strategic towns of Sloviansk, which Russian forces and separatists held in 2014, Kramatorsk and Sievierodonetsk. Any assault is likely to run into major resistance from the Ukrainian army.
Ukraine’s military, however, have not so far been able to reinforce their own forces in the Donbas, said one western official, because they are still attempting to secure areas retaken from Russian troops, and need to defend Kyiv against any surprise attempt to retake the capital.
Russia has stepped up its attacks from strongholds in the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk, occupied for eight years by pro-Kremlin separatists. Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of the Ukrainian-controlled area of Donetsk oblast, said on Wednesday there had been intensive enemy shelling.
Ten high-rise buildings in Sievierodonetsk were shelled and on fire, he said. Russian troops also attacked the city of Vuhldar, south-west of Donetsk. A Russian aircraft bombed an aid distribution point, Kyrylenko said, killing two civilians and wounding five. Photos from the scene showed two women lying motionless in the street. One had lost her left leg; the other was sprawled on her back, arms flung to her side. There were bloodstains on a wall and shattered windows.
Kyrylenko said the Russian “fascists” responsible “will not be forgiven”.
Serhiy Haidai, the head of the Luhansk regional military administration, predicted that the Russian offensive was likely to start “in three to four days”, once they had relocated reserves. “We are observing the constant arrival of new forces, both equipment and personnel” he said, emphasising that Ukraine’s armed forces were ready to fight back.
About 30,000 civilians are still in frontline Lysychansk, with a smaller number in Sievierodonetsk, he said.
Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato secretary general, said Putin’s long-term goal was still to occupy all of Ukraine. He said the international community had to be realistic and understand Russia’s war and invasion could go on for “many months or even years”.
Western leaders expressed further outrage at the massacres of civilians in the garden suburb of Bucha north-west of Kyiv, as fears grew for the inhabitants of other occupied towns and cities.
Boris Johnson said the images of Ukrainians shot from close range with their hands tied together did not “look far short of genocide”. Given what Putin was doing in Ukraine, “it is no wonder people are responding in the way that they are”, he said, promising further UK sanctions.
According to Ukraine’s human rights ombudswoman, Lyudmyla Denisova, more than 400 residents have gone missing from the town of Hostomel, in the Kyiv region. She said witnesses had told her some had been killed during 35 days of Russian occupation.
The Kremlin has called allegations that its soldiers committed war crimes in Bucha and elsewhere a “monstrous forgery”. Satellite images, however, show multiple bodies lying on the streets well before Russian troops pulled out and headed north.
Meanwhile, about 1,000 people have made it out of the besieged port city of Mariupol in a convoy of buses and private cars organised by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). They are now at the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia.
“It’s a huge relief for hundreds of people who have suffered immensely and are now in a safer location. It’s clear, though, that thousands more civilians trapped inside Mariupol need safe passage out and aid to come in,” Pascal Hundt, the ICRC’s head of delegation in Ukraine, said.
The ICRC team had tried for five days and four nights to reach Mariupol, coming within 12 miles of the city, but security conditions made it impossible to enter.
Ukrainian officials said the Russian military had pounded the city over the past 24 hours, with 118 airstrikes. They also said Russian soldiers were gathering bodies in order to destroy evidence of war crimes. A mobile crematorium was going from street to street, collecting and disposing of corpses from people killed by shelling and shooting.
In its latest assessment, the Ministry of Defence said the humanitarian situation in Mariupol was deteriorating. “More than 160,000 remaining residents have no light, communication, medicine, heat or water. Russian forces have prevented humanitarian access, likely to pressure defenders to surrender,” it said.
