the times | Saturday April 30 2022 2GM 15
News
Russia has announced that it is using
submarines to fire cruise missiles at
Ukrainian targets after the sinking of
its Black Sea flagship, the Moskva, in its
first admission of such a manoeuvre.
Yesterday the Russian Ministry of
Defence said it had used a submarine to
strike Ukraine with Kalibr precision
missiles, releasing a video that it said
showed the attack.
Satellite images taken by the Maxar
space technology firm show a Kilo-
class submarine in the Black Sea port of
Sevastopol, Crimea, being loaded with
missiles thought to be Kalibrs.
The Russian Black Sea fleet has
moved further off the coast after its
Atlant class missile cruiser sank on
April 14, apparently struck by two
Ukrainian Neptune rockets launched
from Odesa.
It will be harder for Ukraine to retali-
ate against submarines than surface
vessels and the move could help swing
the battle for control of the Black Sea
coast back in the Kremlin’s favour.
Russia fired Kalibr missiles into the
centre of Kyiv on Thursday night while
the head of the United Nations, Antó-
nio Guterres, was visiting the city. At
least one person died and ten more
were injured when one hit flats.
Moscow is using more of its modern
assets in Ukraine, deploying a new anti-
tank mine that pops up into the air to
strike the top of the target’s turret,
where the armour is more vulnerable.
The new Russian PTKM-1R mines
were discovered for the first time in
Ukraine on April 26, according to Neil
Gibson of Fenix Insight, an online
munitions database.
Ukraine’s use of advanced western
technology is helping to level the play-
ing field, however. Russian fighter air-
craft and attack helicopter pilots are
launching daily strike missions in east-
ern Ukraine in a manner that shows
they are desperate to avoid western-
supplied anti-air missiles.
New video of Russia’s Ka-52 gunships
and low-flying Su-25 fighter jets under-
line the impact that US Stinger, UK
Starstreak and Ukrainian missile sys-
tems have had on the battlefield. A
Kamov-52 Alligator helicopter seen fly-
ing over Pervomaisk in the Luhansk re-
gion is supposed to be one of the Rus-
sian air force’s most deadly gunships.
Yet the video shows it firing rockets into
the air without any obvious target. The
rockets were unguided and likely to
cause civilian casualties.
The Ukrainian military claims to
have shot down or captured at least ten
of the two-seater Ka-52 helicopters.
Dozens of other helicopters have been
shot down.
Nato has warned that although the
next few days and weeks will decide the
course of the war, it is likely to drag on
for years. However, Mircea Geoana,
Nato deputy secretary-general, told the
BBC: “But, in the end, probably this will
be fought and won, hopefully, by
Ukraine on the battlefield.”
A man has been released in a prison-
er swap negotiated by a deputy prime
minister of Ukraine, Iryna Vereshchuk.
Nikita Horban, 31, told the BBC from
his hospital bed that he had been tor-
tured by Russian soldiers, who forced
him to lie in a frozen field for three
nights wearing boots filled with water.
He said he had lost a toe to frostbite.News
Kremlin turns to
submarines after
loss of Moskva
Maxim Tucker, Michael Evanswith them. There were seven of us
in our group, but two of them I
didn’t know who they were. The
information we got is very minimal,
we didn’t get told very much at all,
if anything.”
He was asked: “What would you
like to say to other Englishmen who
decide to go to Ukraine?”
He replied: “They need to really
think about it. This doesn’t involve
us.” He said that his father had died
on New Year’s Eve and that he did
not have a relationship with his
mother. Asked if there was
“anybody else who can care about
you”, he replied, “My children. I
have four children, and I do have a
partner who I’m dating now.”
He asked: “Will I be able to getback home to England or anything
like that?” His unseen interrogator
replied: “I cannot say now how long
it is going to take but you can rest
assured that nothing dangerous
[will happen to you].” He was told
that he would be taken to hospital.
Meanwhile an aid organisation
reported the capture of two other
British men who it said had fallen
into the hands of Russian troops
while working as humanitarian aid
volunteers.
Paul Urey and Dylan Healy were
captured early on Monday at a
checkpoint south of the city of
Zaporizhzhia in southeastern
Ukraine, according to the charity
the Presidium Network.
Urey, who was born in 1977 and is
from Manchester, and Healy, born
in 2000 and from Cambridgeshire,
travelled to Ukraine independently,
the group said. When they got into
trouble they were driving to rescue
a mother and two children who
wanted to evacuate the area close to
the front line.
“We want to tell the Russians
basically that these aren’t spies,”
said Dominik Byrne, of the
Presidium Network. “These aren’tmilitary people. These are just
humanitarian workers who got
caught in a bad situation.
He added: “We need to put
pressure on the government to take
this case seriously, and try, through
their networks to verify this, but
also to... help us find these people.
“But also because I know
diplomatic channels are completely
broken down, we use these tactics
to find people by having it very
public and putting pressure publicly
on Russia to determine that they
have got these two people and that
they’re safe and well.”
Urey’s mother, Linda, told Sky
News that her son going missing
had been her worst nightmare.
“I begged him not to because...
Russia’s bad,” she said.
She added: “I was on FaceTime
with him up to 4am on Monday
morning and that was it, gone.
Something’s wrong, they’ve got him,
definitely. He would contact me if
he could and he can’t.”EAST2WEST NEWSinterrogator. Dylan Healy, above left, is also thought to have been captured
Analysis
T
here is no sign that
President Putin’s
determination to
achieve his military
objectives is faltering
after 64 days of war. Nor is he
prepared to concede the losses
his Russian forces have suffered
(Michael Evans writes).
The warning by Liz Truss, the
foreign secretary, that the war in
Ukraine could last for five years
or more appears questionable.
What is the intelligence analysis
behind this statement? Is the
West prepared and sufficiently
united to back Ukraine with
military and economic aid for
this length of time? Putin will be
pondering the same questions.
Looking at the war from the
Kremlin point of view, there are
good reasons to conclude that it’s
in the interests of both Putin’s
survival as leader and the future
of Russia’s economy to grab a
“victory” as quickly as possible
and make the best of a botched
and incompetent invasion.
A five-year campaign of
attritional warfare in a part of
Ukraine which has suffered war
since 2014 without a victory for
Moscow makes little sense.
The Russian armed forces are
running out of precision weapons
and each Kalibr cruise missile
costs about $1.5 million. Tank
spares are low because of the
western ban on the export of
high-tech components to Russia.
Many of their elite battalion
tactical groups have been
crippled by high casualty rates.
Putin will be hard-pressed to fill
the gaps with conscripts.
General Philip Breedlove, the
former Nato supreme allied
commander for Europe, told
The Times that he could not see
how Putin could contemplate a
long war in Ukraine, if only
because of the manpower
shortages.
Andrew Krepinevich, a US
defence analyst and a former
Pentagon official, said: “The
betting is that Breedlove is right.
If the war drags on Putin faces
the risk of the Russian economy
requiring years to recover, the
military balance relative to Nato
continuing to worsen and
growing internal discontent.
Putin has strong incentives to
declare victory and end the war.
“However,” he added, “if
the alliance prioritises not
provoking Putin, the conflict
could devolve into a low-level
extended war.”
The Pentagon is cautious,
despite announcing a $33 billion
aid package. John Kirby, the
Pentagon press secretary, said
the war “can and should end
today should Mr Putin choose to
do the right thing and remove his
forces”. He added: “It would be
wrong to conclude that the
assistance in recent days, or that
to come, reflects a certitude
about the length of the war.”Paul Urey, from
Manchester, was
believed to have
been seized in
southern UkraineA Russian missile strike has killed
Vira Hyrych, a Ukrainian producer
for the US-funded Radio Free Europe
network. Her body was found
yesterday in the ruins of her block
of flats in the Shevchenkivskyi district
of Kyiv, which includes most of the
city’s historical centre. She was 55.
The missile attack took place as
António Guterres, the UN
secretary-general, visited Kyiv for a
meeting with President Zelensky.A former US Marine was killed as he
fought alongside Ukrainian troops,
his relatives told reporters, in the first
known death of an American fighting
in Ukraine. Willy Joseph Cancel, 22,
from Tennessee was working for a
military contracting company, his
mother, Rebecca Cabrera, told CNN.
His widow, Brittany Cancel, told Fox
News that he was a hero who leaves a
young son.Former US Marine killed
Putin ‘could use Victory
Parade to mobilise Russia’
President Putin could announce the
mass mobilisation of Russia on May 9
— the date of the annual Victory
Parade celebrating the Russian defeat
of fascism in the Second World War
— according to Ben Wallace, the
defence secretary. He told LBC the
Russian leader had failed in nearly all
of his objectives and could use the
significant date to declare “we are
now at war with the world’s Nazis and
we need to mass-mobilise the Russian
people”. A western official said he
believed Putin would have a desire to
announce some sort of success on
that date and there was a “possibility
we see a greater call to arms”.
However, he added that such a move
would require a shift in the narrative,
from one of calling the invasion of
Ukraine a “special operation” to
admitting it was a war. “We are not
yet seeing indications of a change of
narrative. That’s something we will
watch over the next ten days or so,”
he said.
Journalist killed by missile
ukraine in brief
China issues warning over
Zelensky’s G20 invitation
China has warned the G20 group of
leading nations against “politicising
and weaponising” their forthcoming
summit after President Zelensky was
invited to take part. Indonesia, which
is hosting the forum in Bali in
November, has invited both Zelensky
and President Putin. Wang Wenbin, a
spokesman for China’s foreign
ministry, suggested that it was
inappropriate to invite Zelensky, as,
unlike Russia, Ukraine was not a
member of the group. “The G
group should focus on its primary
charge, avoid politicising and
weaponising global economic and
financial co-operation, but make
positive contributions to promote the
stability and recovery of the global
economy and perfect the global
economic governance,” Wang said.
Since the war broke out, Beijing has
sided with Moscow’s security
concerns and blamed the US and
Nato for making provocations at
the cost of Ukrainian lives.