Ukraine told residents of its industrial heartland to leave while they still can and urged Western nations to send "weapons, weapons, weapons" Thursday after Russian forces withdrew from shattered outskirts of Kyiv to regroup for an offensive in the country's east.
Russia's six-week-old invasion failed to take Ukraine's capital quickly and achieve what Western countries say was President Vladimir Putin's initial aim to oust Ukrainian government. Russia's focus is now on the Donbas, a mostly Russian-speaking region in eastern Ukraine. In Brussels, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba urged NATO to provide more weapons for his war-torn country to help prevent further atrocities like those reported in Kyiv's northern suburbs.
Ukrainian authorities are working to identify hundreds of bodies they say were found in Bucha and other towns after Russian troops withdrew and to document what they say were war crimes. "My agenda is very simple… it's weapons, weapons and weapons," Kuleba said as he arrived at NATO headquarters for talks with military organization's foreign ministers about Ukraine's fight to defend itself. "The more weapons we get and the sooner they arrive in Ukraine, the more human lives will be saved," he said. Some NATO nations worry they may be Russia's next target, but the alliance is striving to avoid actions that might pull any of its 30 members directly into the war.
Still, he NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg urged member nations to send Ukraine more weapons, and not just defensive arms. "Ukraine is fighting a defensive war, so this distinction between offensive and defensive weapons doesn't actually have any real meaning," he said.
Western countries have provided Ukraine with portable anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons, but they have been reluctant to supply aircraft or tanks plus any equipment that Ukrainian troops would have to be trained to use.
Asked what more his country was seeking, Kuleba listed planes, land-based missiles, armoured vehicles and air defense systems. A US defence official speaking on condition of anonymity said Russia had pulled all of its estimated 24,000 or more troops from the Kyiv and Chernihiv areas in north, sending them into Belarus or Russia to resupply, reorganize and likely prepare to return to fight in the east.
Growing numbers of Putin's troops, along with mercenaries, have been reported moving into Donbas, where Russia-backed separatists have fought Ukrainian forces for eight years and control two areas. Ahead of its Feb 24 invasion, Moscow recognised the Luhansk and Donetsk areas as independent states. Military analysts have said Putin also could be seeking to expand into government-controlled parts of the Donbas.
Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said at least five civilians were killed and another eight were wounded by Russian shelling on Wednesday. Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk urged civilians to evacuate to safer regions before it was too late. "Later, people will come under fire, and we won't be able to do anything to help them," Vereshchuk said. Another Western official, also speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence estimates, said it may take Russia's battle-damaged forces as much as a month to regroup for a major push on eastern Ukraine.
Oleksandr Shputun, spokesman for General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, reported Thursday that near Donbas, Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, remained blockaded. He said Russian forces also were carrying out "brutal measures" in the southern Kherson region, which they hold.
In his nightly address to the nation late Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine, too, was preparing for battle. "We will fight and we will not retreat," he said. "We will seek all possible options to defend ourselves until Russia begins to seriously seek peace. This is our land.
This is our future. And we won't give them up."In areas north of the capital, Ukrainian officials gathered evidence of Russian atrocities amid signs Moscow's troops killed people indiscriminately before retreating. Ukrainian authorities said bodies of least 410 civilians were found in towns around Kyiv, victims of what Zelenskyy has portrayed as a Russian campaign of murder, rape, dismemberment and torture. Some victims had apparently been shot at close range. Some were found with their hands bound. Western officials warned that similar atrocities were likely to have taken place in other areas occupied by Russian troops. Zelenskyy accused Russian forces of trying to cover up war crimes in areas still under their control, "afraid that global anger over what was seen in Bucha would be repeated,” he said.