Vladimir Putin’s regime is “aspiring to make a desert and call it peace” in Ukraine by “systematically destroying” towns and cities, a leading expert said on Friday.
Dr Jack Watling, research fellow in land warfare at The Royal United Services Institute, warned that bombardments by Russian forces were expected to get worse, partly because morale among their ground troops was so low that defence chiefs did not want to send them into difficult urban battles.
He also slammed “callous” Russian military commanders who had sent thousands of young soldiers into Ukraine without telling them they were going to war.
A 40-mile column of Russian tanks and other military vehicles is still around 18 miles north from the city centre of Kyiv, with British defence chiefs believing it has made little progress in recent days due to strong Ukrainian resistance, mechanical breakdowns and other logistical problems.
But other cities including Kharkiv in the east and Mariupol in the south have come under devastating artillery and air attack.
Shocking footage and reports have emerged of residential buildings destroyed, with the civilian death toll in the hundreds, possibly already over 2,000.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Mr Watling said: “The Russians have hit this point where they know they have low morale, they don’t want to commit their forces into these really difficult urban battles.
“So, they have...gone static, surrounded these towns and are systematically destroying them with artillery.
“They are aspiring to make a desert and call it peace and that is irrespective of the civilian population that lives there.”
He added: “What we have seen over the last 24 hours is a significant increase in Russian air activity and aircraft can drop far heavier weights of ordnance than most ground systems.
“So, I think the bombardment is going to get significantly worse.”
Reports claim that some Russian soldiers have sabotaged their own vehicles rather than be sent into battle in a war which at least some of them are said to have not been told they were being deployed to fight.
Mr Watling added: “It’s worth highlighting there the callousness towards human life of a military leadership that is not prepared to tell its own soldiers what they are about to go through.
“That is having a very serious impact on the morale of those troops.”
Russian defence chiefs are reportedly seeking to encircle Kyiv, with forces also pushing around the west of the capital, towards the Makariv area, according to some military experts.
On the column bearing down on Kyiv from the north, Mr Watling explained: ““The longer it takes them to unfurl that column, to start to manoeuvre around Kyiv, then the Ukrainians can start infiltrating up and start turning that highway into a site where they can conduct ambushes and slowly attrit that force.”
He added: “We have seen issues with for example the quality of maintenance on their vehicles preventing them from going cross-country.
“Once you have a certain number of vehicles on the roads you don’t have a functioning army, you just have a traffic jam which means you can’t get food from the back of the column to the front and so fourth.”
The West fears the Russian president will unleash an overwhelming assault on Ukraine’s major cities, potentially inflicting devastating civilian casualties.
French President Emmanuel Macron spoke to Mr Putin on Thursday but said “he refuses to stop his attacks on Ukraine at this point”.
The Russian president warned Ukraine that it must quickly accept the Kremlin’s demand for its “demilitarisation” and declare itself neutral, renouncing its bid to join Nato.
Peace talks between the two sides have so far failed to end the hostilities, although there is hope for humanitarian corridors to allow civilians to escape.
The port city of Kherson became the first major city to fall since the invasion began.
Mr Watling added: ““In the south, we are seeing them exploit the capture of Kherson because they are now on the western side of the Dnieper to be able to push further up the river and towards Odessa.”
