8 2GM Monday April 4 2022 | the times
News
Russian missiles struck near the Black
Sea port of Odesa yesterday, opening a
new front of conflict in southern
Ukraine, even as the Kremlin’s forces
fell back in the north of the country.
Critical infrastructure was hit,
according to Odesa’s regional govern-
ment, causing several fires, but there
were no reports of casualties. More
explosions were heard in the city last
night.
Boris Johnson has told ministers that
he wants to arm Ukraine with anti-ship
missiles to prevent Russian bombard-
ment and an assault against the coun-
try’s largest port and main naval base,
which British military intelligence
assesses to be among the next targets of
Putin’s invasion.
Pictures from Odesa showed black
smoke rising into the sky after the
strikes. Russia said that an oil refinery
and three fuel stores had been
destroyed by missiles. The defence
ministry in Moscow said the facilities
had supplied Ukrainian troops near the
city of Mykolaiv, where there has been
heavy fighting and bombardments.
Anton Herashchenko, an aide to
Ukraine’s interior minister, said local
officials had reported several more
rocket attacks on the city, where a strike
on a regional government building
killed at least 28 people.
In London the Ministry of Defence
said Russia’s navy continued to block-
ade the Ukrainian coast in the Black
Sea and the Sea of Azov, preventing re-
supply by sea, while the air force had
concentrated on southeastern Ukraine,
probably “as a result of Russia focusing
its military operations in this area”.
Russia still retained the capability to
attempt an amphibious landing, but
such an operation would be “increas-
ingly high risk” because of the amount
of time that Ukrainian forces have had
to prepare, the MoD said.
A senior government source told The
Sunday Times: “The next target is
Odesa. It’s not tanks which are going to
come at Odesa. It’s going to be ships.
Next generation light anti-tank weap-
ons don’t work against ships, so what
does? They [the Ukrainians] want the
kind of stuff that can take out ships.
“The PM is eager and determined to
help find that. We don’t have every-
thing they need for the next stage but
we have become the default co-
ordinator of other countries.”
Since the invasion Odesa has been
sandbagging key buildings and putting
up anti-tank obstacles, but has so far
escaped the fate of Mariupol, the port
on the Sea of Azov to the east which has
been almost obliterated.
Local officials say that 5,000 people
have died in the besieged city, and up to
170,000 are cut off without power and
dwindling supplies. A renewed attempt
to deliver aid and evacuate civilians was
made at the weekend. The Inter-
national Committee of the Red Cross
said that a convoy left Zaporizhzhia onPresident Putin wants to be able to cele-
brate success in eastern Ukraine on
Victory Day on May 9 when the Rus-
sian military traditionally parade in
Red Square, according to US officials.
They say the imperative for a battle-
field win to coincide with the holiday
marking the Nazi surrender in the
Second World War explains the shift of
Russian forces to concentrate on the
eastern Donbas region and the land
corridor along the southeastern border
of Ukraine.
US intelligence has correctly predict-
ed many of Putin’s key moves including
the invasion itself and the initial plan to
encircle Kyiv and take the southeastern
land corridor.
American intelligence intercepts
now suggest that Putin is very focused
on May 9 and eastern Ukraine is the
most likely region for a military victory
because at least some of the population
are sympathetic to Russia, unlike much
of the rest of Ukraine. The Russians
may want to trap some Ukrainian
forces in the region to prevent them
Putin wants the east by Victory Day
being redeployed elsewhere. Ukrainian
officials also believe that May 9 is play-
ing a key role in Russia’s plan B after the
failure of its initial invasion to take over
the capital and the country amid strong
resistance.
“[Putin’s] ultimate goal is, was and
will be to take over Ukraine but he fail-
ed,” Arseniy Yatsenyuk, a former
Ukrainian prime minister, told CNN.
“He failed due to a very strong
resolve of Ukrainian military and very
strong unity of Ukraine and the west-
ern world, and the sanctions that have
been imposed by the United States, G
and the European Union. “So now, as
far as I see, Putin switched to plan B. My
take is that plan B has a, kind of, dead-
line. The deadline is the ninth of May.”
Some European officials are wonder-
ing what kind of Victory Day parade
the Russian military will be able to
stage with so many forces committed to
Ukraine. But they believe he is deter-
mined to hold the event.
US intelligence believes that the rush
to relocate now is because warmer tem-
peratures will make it increasingly
harder for the Russians to manoeuvretheir heavy armour. Once focused on
the east and south they could be there
for several months.
The US also believes that Putin is
preparing to name an overall com-
mander to try to achieve greater Rus-
sian success. Putin will probably name a
general with experience in the south of
Ukraine because that is where the Rus-
sian objectives have had most success.
Before the invasion of Ukraine on
February 24, Putin announced that he
was recognising the independence of
Luhansk and Donetsk, two self-
declared republics in the Donbas re-
gion. President Zelensky has suggested
recently that he is prepared to negotiate
on the basis of a return to this situation.
James Stavridis, a retired former su-
preme allied commander of Nato, told
CNN: “Plan A failed miserably so they
are on plan B now. If I was giving them
[the Russians] advice, I would say it is a
pretty smart plan to consolidate your
forces, get them in one area of the coun-
try where you’ve got sympathetic fol-
lowers to a degree... Plan A would not
have gotten a passing grade at any war
college in the West. It was a dumb plan.”David Charter Washington
Odesa pounded
as Russians open
new front in south
Tom Ball Saturday morning but as of last night it
had yet to reach Mariupol.
The governor of the eastern Donetsk
region said yesterday that shelling had
continued throughout the night and
day, and described the situation in the
region as turbulent.
Ukraine’s military has said it believes
that Russia has pulled forces from
around Kyiv and Chernihiv regions to
move them to the Donbas for a new
assault aiming to occupy both the
Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Further north, Ukraine’s military
said yesterday that Russia launched a
missile attack on the town of Vasylkiv
about 30 miles from Kyiv and hit an air
command centre that had already been
destroyed, injuring some civilians in a
nearby college.
Seven people died and 34 were
wounded after Russian forces struck a
residential area in Ukraine’s second
largest city Kharkiv yesterday, local
prosecutors said.
However, Ukrainian forces have re-
captured dozens of towns and villages,
managing to lift a siege of Chernihiv
and the area around the Chernobyl
nuclear power plant.
The Ukrainian army published a
photograph of a soldier raising a
Ukrainian flag; in the background was
the steel shelter covering the remains of
reactor number four, site of the catas-
trophic meltdown in 1986.
Paratroopers have pushed as far
north as Pripyat, abandoned after the
nuclear disaster, and close to the border
with Putin’s ally Belarus. Russian forces
took control of the decommissioned
nuclear plant early in the invasion but
withdrew last week, the International
Atomic Energy Agency said.
Europe’s worst conflict in decades,
started by Russia’s invasion on Februa-
ry 24, has left at least 20,000 people
dead, according to Ukrainian estimates.
50 miles BLACK SEAOdesaUKRAINECRIMEAKhersonMykolaivRussian-held territory as of Apr 2
Russian advances
Ukrainian counter-offensive as of Apr 2Yesterday
Russian missiles
hit oil refinery
and fuel facilitiesWomen watching the assault on the Black Sea port city of Odesa yesterday, aTwo Russian soldiers were killed and 28
taken seriously ill after Ukrainian
villagers fed them poisoned pies,
Ukraine’s military intelligence claimed.
“Ukrainians are resisting the occu-
piers by all available means,” the minis-
try of defence said. “According to
available information, local residents of
the Izium district [in the east of the
country] ‘treated’ Russians from the 3rd
motorised rifle division of the Russian
Federation with poisoned pies.
“As a result, two occupiers died at
once, another 28 were taken to the
intensive care unit. Their current state
is being clarified.”
The ministry also alleged that 500
servicemen from the same division had
been admitted to hospital because of
alcohol poisoning. The claims could
not be independently verified andRussia has not commented. There have
been widespread reports of Russian
soldiers looting food from shops and
homes after invading Ukraine.
Military analysts have suggested that
poor logistics left Russian units low on
provisions. Kyiv also alleged that a
range of other goods had been stolen.
Ukrainian intelligence has published
what it said was an intercepted phone
call of a Russian soldier deployed in
Ukraine telling a woman he had looted
make-up for her and vitamins for him-
self, but did not take a laptop because he
did not have a bag with him.
Abandoned or disabled Russian
vehicles have been found carrying
washing machines, computers, child-
ren’s toys and carpets.
Ukraine’s defence ministry said a
market had been set up in Naroulia in
southern Belarus to sell goods looted in
Ukraine.
Mazyr, also in Belarus, had become
“the collection point for Russian mili-
tary trucks with loot from Ukraine
which is then sent to Russia by express
delivery service”, it added.
Video circulated on social media yes-
terday appeared to show men in mili-
tary clothing dispatching packages of
looted goods back to Russia from the
office of a courier service in the town.Villagers kill
invaders with
poison pies
Tom BallNews War in Ukraine