LAHORE MIRROR (Monitoring Desk)– Russia warned Kyiv residents to flee their homes on Tuesday and rained rockets on the city of Kharkiv as Russian commanders intensified their bombardment of Ukrainian urban areas in a shift of tactics after their six-day assault stalled.
A U.S. official said a miles-long armoured column bearing down on Kyiv had not made any advances on the capital in the past 24 hours, frozen in place by logistics problems, short on fuel and food, and perhaps pausing to reassess tactics.
Russia’s defence ministry said it was planning to strike targets in Kyiv used by Ukraine’s security service. It warned residents near such sites to evacuate their homes, while giving no information about where in the city of three million people those targets were located.
Kyiv’s mayor published a video showing the moment when a TV antennae in the city was engulfed in flames, apparently hit by a rocket, killing five people. Earlier, Russia’s defence ministry said it would strike communications sites in Kyiv it said were being used for “information attacks”, TASS news agency reported.
Rocket strikes on Ukraine’s second biggest city Kharkiv killed at least 10 people and wounded 35, Ukrainian Interior Ministry adviser Anton Herashchenko said. Similar strikes killed and wounded dozens in Kharkiv on Monday.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the artillery barrages on Kharkiv, a city of 1.5 million, amounted to “state terrorism”.
‘SHAMBOLIC’
But nearly a week since Russian troops poured over the border, they have not captured a single major Ukrainian city after running into far fiercer resistance than they expected.
Many Western military analysts fear that Russia will now fall back on tactics which call for crushing bombardment of built-up areas before trying to enter them.
A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said:
“One reason why things appear to be stalled north of Kyiv is that the Russians themselves are regrouping and rethinking and trying to adjust to the challenges that they’ve had.”
The Russians have been surprised not only by the scale of Ukrainian resistance but also by poor morale among their own forces, some of whom surrendered without a fight, the U.S. official said.
Russia still has more forces to throw into the fight even though President Vladimir Putin has drawn global condemnation and sanctions that have already sent the rouble into freefall and forced Russians to queue outside banks for their savings.
Russia’s TASS news agency reported new peace talks would be held on Wednesday. A first round of talks between Russian and Ukrainian officials on Monday at the Belarus border failed to reach a breakthrough.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Kyiv was ready to talk but would not bow to Russian ultimatums.
SOURCE: REUTERS
