8 Thursday April 28 2022 | the times
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Western officials believe Russia will try
to encircle Ukrainian troops fighting in
the eastern Donbas region over the
next four to six weeks, making the rapid
supply of Nato weapons crucial.
If they achieve that aim, the Ukraini-
ans will be fighting in multiple direc-
tions and it will be “harder” for them to
sustain their resistance, an official said.
Although the official noted the com-
ing weeks were a “critical period”, he
said Ukraine should be able to continue
to resupply its forces for a “period of
time” after they have been encircled.
Western nations are ramping up their
deployment of lethal weapons to the
country in the belief that with the right
equipment, Ukraine can beat back
invading troops.
Russia has continued to pour troops
into the Donbas in an attempt to over-
whelm the defenders, but progress so
far has been limited, officials believe,
partly because of bad weather and con-
tinued logistical problems.
“It [Russian progress] is not helped by
the weather conditions at the moment
in the Donbas, there’s heavy rain”, the
official said. “The Russian’s don’t like to
fight in the rain and that is slowing their
progress”.
Chris Parry, a former Royal Navy
officer, said the ground was already
waterlogged following an “exceptional
thaw after the winter season” and so
further rainfall was “churning it up with
mud”.
“It’s tracked vehicles that are having
the problem, and the wheeled ones are
hopeless,” he added.
The western official said that
Ukraine had “proved remarkable” in its
ability to counter-attack, giving no time
for Russian forces to set up camp in
seized towns and villages.
Ukrainian special forces have also
been operating behind Russian lines
and exploiting the vulnerability of long
supply chains, buying time for troops to
build-up capabilities and secure further
equipment, he said.
Oleksiy Reznikov, Ukraine’s defence
minister, said the country faced “major
destruction”. In a statement on Face-
book, Reznikov said: “Some extremely
difficult weeks lie ahead.”
“Russia has already gathered forces
for a large-scale offensive in eastern
Ukraine,” he added, saying Moscow
“will try to inflict as much pain as
possible” and warned of “destruction
and painful casualties”.
Russia’s defence ministry said yester-
day its Kalibr missiles had struck an
arms depot in the Zaporizhzhia region
that housed weapons from Nato allies.
Sea-launched cruise missiles hit the
weapons stored on the grounds of an
aluminium plant, Major General Igor
Konashenkov, the ministry’s spokes-
man, said. The batch of weapons con-
tained equipment from the US and
European countries, he claimed.
Konashenkov also said that Russian
warplanes struck 59 Ukrainian targets,
including areas of concentrations of
troops and equipment. He said Russian
artillery hit 573 Ukrainian targets.
The strikes came amid Kremlin
anger at James Heappey, the British
armed forces minister, who said that it
was “completely legitimate” for
Ukraine to strike strategic targets on
Russian soil.
Russia’s defence ministry accused the
UK of “directly provoking” Ukraine into
attacks, and warned of a “proportional
response” if the country succeeds in
landing them, hinting at possible strikes
against British sites in Kyiv.
Dominic Raab, the deputy prime
minister, described the threat as
“unlawful” and said the Putin regime
was only adding to its “pariah status” by
threatening other countries.
His comments were reinforced by
western officials. In a briefing, they said:
“There is a Russian narrative that this is
a proxy war between Russia and Nato.
It isn’t. We are supporting Ukraine in
their self-defence.
“It is a conflict between Russia and
Ukraine provoked by Russia’s illegal
aggression. We are entitled to provide
military support to any state exercising
its right to self-defence and that is law-
ful. The Russian statement threatening
retaliatory strikes is unlawful.”
Elsewhere, Ukraine’s general staff
said Russian forces were pressing their
offensive in the Kharkiv and Donetsk
regions and they had captured several
settlements.
Explosions were heard overnight in
three Russian regions bordering
Ukraine and an ammunition depot wasset on fire. Mykhailo Podolyak, a
presidential adviser in Ukraine, de-
scribed the incidents as “karma”, but
did not say that Ukraine was responsi-
ble for the incidents.
“The reasons for the destruction of
the military infrastructure in [Russian]
border areas can be quite varied,” he
wrote on the Telegram messaging app,
adding that when one country decided
to attack another “sooner or later the
debts will have to be repaid”.
Blasts in the centre and outskirts of
Kursk, a transit city for Russian forces
heading to Ukraine, were thought to
have been the result of air-defence
systems shooting down a Bayraktar
combat drone. The Turkish-produced
drones are said to have been responsi-
ble for attacks this week on two oil
storage facilities in Bryansk, a city
about 95 miles from Ukraine.
In Voronezh, another city close to
Ukraine, a reconnaissance drone was
shot down near a military airfield, the
regional governor said. Social media
footage showed flashes in the sky above
the city. Loud explosions were heard in
the Belgorod region after a blaze broke
out at an ammunitions dump.
Nikolai Patrushev, the head of
Russia’s national security council, said
yesterday that the authorities in
regions bordering Ukraine should
ensure that civilian bunkers and other
shelters were in a working condition in
case of an attack, including with bio-
logical weapons. Russia has accused
Nato of developing biological weapons
at Ukrainian laboratories, an allegation
that has been rejected by the United
Nations and the World Health Organi-
sation.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in
February Nato allies have mostly
supplied only light weaponry and
defensive anti-tank and anti-aircraft
weapons out of fears of escalation. Kyiv
has repeatedly requested heavy arma-
ments such as tanks and warplanes to
help it match the men and material that
Russia is deploying.
According to a British Ministry of
Defence bulletin yesterday, “Ukraine
retains control over the majority of its
airspace”, suggesting that any donated
warplanes could be used effectively.
West must step up military aid to Kyiv,
leading article, page 31US intelligence-sharing
helps to delay invaders
David Charter WashingtonUS intelligence helped Ukrainian
forces shoot down a Russian transport
plane carrying hundreds of troops at a
vital moment in the war, according to
American officials.
This happened early in the invasion
and helped to delay the Russian capture
of a strategically important airport in
the northwestern Kyiv suburbs.
It was one of the clearest battlefield
successes of intelligence-sharing
between Washington and Kyiv, which
has also helped to shield Ukraine’s air
defences from attack and deny Russia
dominance of its airspace, according to
US officials.
The scale of the co-operation is
unprecedented between the US and a
non-Nato partner. The “near real-
time” intelligence has helped the out-
numbered Ukrainian forces in their de-
fensive operations and counterattacks
as well as keeping President Zelensky
safe from assassination.
“From the get-go, we leaned pretty
heavily forward in sharing both strate-
gic and actionable intelligence with
Ukraine,” a US official told NBC News.“It’s been impactful both at a tactical
and strategic level.”
The Russians targeted the airport at
Hostomel, 30km from the centre of
Kyiv, which would have allowed them
to flood the region with troops and
equipment. Although they eventually
took the airport for a time, they never
had enough control to fly in massive
amounts of equipment.
Ukrainian forces have used specific
co-ordinates shared by the US to direct
their fire at Russian positions and
aircraft.
A former official added: “There has
been a lot of real-time intelligence
shared in terms of things that could be
used for specific targeting of Russian
forces.” The information includes
commercial satellite images “but also a
lot of other intelligence about, for
example, where certain types of
Russian units are active.”
A spokeswoman for the White House
National Security Council said: “We are
regularly providing detailed, timely
intelligence to the Ukrainians on the
battlefield to help them defend their
country against Russian aggression
and will continue to do so.”Novotoshkivske, a village in Luhansk region that was once home to more thanPush to send arms
before Russians
encircle Donbas
Larisa Brown Defence Editor
Julian O’Shaughnessy
AZOV SEAMelitopolSeverodonetskRubizhne
UKRAINERUSSIALuhansk50 milesDonetskIzyumChuhuivKreminnaSeveeverodonetsskkkkkkRubizhneRuRuLuhansnskkkLUHLUHANSANSKKKKKDDonnetsketskkDONDOND ETSETSSKKKKreminnannnanaStaromlynivkaDonbas
region
borderSlovyanskPossible Russian
encirclement
advance
Russian-held
territory
Areas of Russian
advance
Ukrainian
counter-offensiveMariupolKharkivSiverskyi
Donets
RiverSources: Institute for the
Study of War and AEI’s
Critical Threats Project.
Updated April 27A blaze broke out at an ammunitions
dump in the Russian city of BelgorodNews War in Ukraine