Russia has reorganized its offensive command in Ukraine, choosing a general with extensive combat experience in Syria to lead the mission, as Western nations pour more weapons into the country as a precaution. a new Russian offensive in the east.
The appointment of Lieutenant General, Aleksandr V. Dvornikov, as top field commander comes as Britain announced that it is sending an anti-aircraft missile system, 800 anti-tank missiles and armored vehicles to Ukraine. , and when Slovakia assigned the Ukrainian army long-range. S-300 air defense system, with US funding.
In another show of support for Ukraine, Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain made a surprise visit on Saturday to the capital Kyiv, where he met the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, with the flags of both countries.
Mr Johnson and Mr Zelensky planned to discuss further assistance to Ukraine, including a “new financial and military aid package”, the British government said in a statement.
Efforts by Mr Johnson and other Western leaders to support Ukraine come as fears of a new Russian attack escalated a day after missile attack on a train station in the eastern city of Kramatorsk, killing more than 50 people, including children, and injuring many others who were hearing the official warning to flee.
Moscow denies responsibility for the attack, but US military officials and independent analysts in Washington said they believe Russian forces launched the missile.
Mr Zelensky described the attack as “another Russian war crime” in his nightly televised address to the country. He said the attack on innocent civilians at the station would be investigated, along with other atrocities perpetrated by the Russian military, including the killing of civilians in Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv.
“Like the massacre in Bucha, as with many other Russian war crimes, the missile attack on Kramatorsk should be one of the charges in court, it certainly will,” Zelensky said. Zelensky said, calling on Russian military commanders to face trials like those faced by the Nazis in Nuremberg after World War II.
Mr Zelensky thanked Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, who visited Bucha on Friday, “for her personal participation and support in setting up a joint investigative team to establish full truth about the actions of the occupiers of Russia and bring all those accountable to justice. ”
Japan said it would join the United States and European countries to assist in an investigation into what Prime Minister Fumio Kishida called an “unforgivable war crime” by the Russian military.
Kishida accused Russia of repeatedly violating international humanitarian law by attacking civilians and nuclear power plants, a sore point for Japan due to its 2011 nuclear disaster at the Fukushima plant. Daiichi.
“We must hold Russia strictly accountable for these atrocities,” Kishida said. Japan said it would also expel eight Russian diplomats, ban the use of Russian coal and restrict imports of Russian wood, vodka and machinery.
Legal experts have said that bringing alleged war crimes going against the Kremlin will be very difficult. The burden of proof is very high, requiring prosecutors to show that the soldiers and their commanders intended to violate international law that establishes the rules of war.
Western analysts and European intelligence officials believe that Russian President Putin is trying to achieve profits on the battlefield on May 9, as he was due to give a victory day speech commemorating both the Soviet victory in World War II and the military campaign in Ukraine.
On Saturday, Russian forces stepped up shelling in eastern Ukraine, with explosions reported in the Odesa and Kharkiv regions. The influx of Russian forces into the region, following their withdrawal from areas around Kyiv, has prompted officials in the east to urge residents to flee. And thousands of people have.
Svitlana Kyrychenko, 47, who evacuated from Kramatorsk with her 18-year-old daughter, elderly mother and aunt on Saturday morning, said: “The Russian army is coming, so we will leave to save her life. me. She is at the train station in downtown Dnipro, looking for a place to stay.
“I brought nothing with me,” she said. “I just brought documents and clothes to change into for a few days.”
Elsewhere in Dnipro, dozens of people waited to board buses bound for Bulgaria.
Ludmila Abramova, 62, who has fled Pavlograd, a city near the Donbas region where Russia is regrouping, said: “Air strikes are becoming more and more frequent. “I’m going.”
“But everything will be fine,” Ms. Abramova added. “I will be back soon.”
On Friday, the day of the missile attack in Kramatorsk, more than 6,600 people tried to flee besieged Ukrainian cities – a record number for the week – said Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk of the country. , speak.
Kramatorsk’s mayor, Oleksandr Honcharenko, said that he expected about a quarter of the city’s 200,000 residents to stay in the city, despite Russian projections. He said the city is preparing food, water and medical supplies.
“The only thing that can convince them to leave the city is if it is besieged,” Honcharenko said.
Fewer than 400 people, he said, boarded the bus leaving Kramatorsk on Saturday, presumably headed for the supposedly safer western regions.
The European Commission on Saturday said the global fundraising effort “Stand Up for Ukraine” had raised 9.1 billion euros, including 1 billion euros from the commission, for people fleeing the conflict. Russian invasion.
More than 7 million Ukrainians had left their home since the invasion on February 24, and more than 4.4 million have left the country altogether, in the fastest exodus of European refugees since World War Two, according to the United Nations.
The reorganization of the Russian military command took place when Institute for War StudiesA Washington tank that monitors the fighting, said in its latest assessment that Russian forces in the east appear to be stalled and “unlikely to produce a breakthrough by Russia and the opposition.” face poor morale.”
The British Ministry of Defense also pointed to Russia’s military challenges, even as the country warned that Russia was expected to escalate air strikes in eastern and southern Ukraine. The ministry said that Russia’s efforts to link up its troops in Crimea, which Russia Annex in 2014, with Kremlin-backed troops in the Donbas region thwarted by Ukrainian counterattacks.
The appointment of General Dvornikov, announced Saturday by a senior US official, is an attempt to fine-tune that struggling campaign, US officials said.
General Dvornikov, 60, holds the second highest rank in the Russian army. He was named a hero of the Russian Federation for commanding Russian forces in the devastating war in Syria, where Putin deployed Russian warplanes and missiles to help Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in a multifaceted conflict between the government. , armed insurgents, jihadists and others. In September 2016, the general was appointed Commander of Russia’s Southern Military District, responsible for the resilient North Caucasus.
Russia has been conducting a military operation against Ukraine outside of Moscow, without a central war command on the ground to coordinate air, land and sea units. That approach helped explain why the invasion struggled against unexpected Ukrainian resistance, and was stymied by poor logistics and high morale, US officials said.
The disorganized attack also contributed to the deaths of at least seven Russian generals, as senior officers were pushed to the front lines to untangle tactical problems that Western armies would leave behind for many. junior officials or senior enlisted military personnel.
Eric Schmitt report from Washington, Jane Arraf from Lviv, Ukraine, and Michael Levenson from New York. Reporting contributed by Andrew Higgins of Kosice, Slovakia, Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Natalia Yermak from Dnipro, Ukraine, Cora Engelbrecht from Krakow, Victoria Kim from Seoul, Julian E. Barnes from Washington, and Steven Erlanger and Matina Stevis-Gridneff from Brussels.
