KRAMATORSK: Mos­cow launched dozens of air strikes across eastern Ukraine overnight, its defence ministry said on Tuesday, with Russia’s top diplomat acknowledging “another phase” of the conflict was beginning as fighting raged in the Donbas region.

Russia’s defence ministry said that “high-precision air-based missiles” had hit 13 Ukrainian positions in parts of the Donbas while other air strikes “hit 60 military assets”, including in towns close to the eastern frontline.

Ukraine’s armed forces also confirmed that fighting had increased throughout the east, just hours after President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had kicked off the widely anticipated offensive in Ukraine’s industrial heartland.

“The Russian occupiers intensified offensive operations along the entire line of contact,” the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov appeared to acknowledge the new offensive during an interview with a leading Indian media outlet.

“Another phase of this operation is beginning and I am sure it will be a very important moment in this entire special operation,” Lavrov told India Today on Tuesday.

Ahead of the advance, Ukrainian authorities had urged people in Donbas to flee west to escape, even as officials called off evacuations for a third straight day from frontline cities due to ongoing fighting.

“No matter how many Russian soldiers are brought here, we will fight. We will defend ourselves,” Zelensky said on Telegram.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he launched the so-called military operation on February 24 to save Russian speakers in Ukraine from a “genocide” carried out by a “neo-Nazi” regime.

But in the Donbas town of Novodruzhesk, Nadya, 65, said “we are bombed everywhere”. “It’s a miracle that we’re still alive,” she said, her voice trembling.

“We were lying on the ground and waiting. Since February 24 we’ve been sleeping in the cellar.” Control of Donbas and the besieged port of Mariupol would allow Moscow to create a southern corridor to the Crimean peninsula that it annexed in 2014, and deprive Ukraine of much of its coastline and a major revenue resource.

In the south, Russia continued its push to capture the besieged port city of Mariupol, as Moscow issued a fresh call for the city’s defenders to surrender and announced the opening of a humanitarian corridor for Ukrainian troops who agreed to lay down their arms.

During an interview broadcast on CNN Tuesday, Pavlo Kyrylenko — who oversees the Donetsk region’s military administration — said Mariupol remained contested.

“The Ukrainian flag is flying over the city,” said Kyrylenko. “I can’t say the Russians are controlling them. It is just these streets are sustaining heavy fighting.”

The first shipments of a new $800-million US military aid package had begun to arrive at Ukraine’s borders this week, for use against Russian forces.

Washington was due to hold a video meeting with allies Tuesday to discuss the conflict in Ukraine, even as it increasingly provoked the ire of Moscow.

Published in Dawn, April 20th, 2022