Ukraine Preparing for New Russian Offensive as Moscow Ruled out Ceasefire

Manas Dasgupta

NEW DELHI, April 11:  Ukraine’s armed forces braced on Monday for a new Russian offensive as powerful explosions rocked cities in the south and east even as the Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov brushed aside any possibility of a ceasefire pending the peace talks.

The governor of the region that includes Ukraine’s fourth-largest city, Dnipro, says the airport was hit twice by missile attacks on Sunday. The Ukrainian military command said Russian forces also keep shelling Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, and have kept up their siege of Mariupol, the key southern port city that has been under attack for nearly six weeks.

Lavrov told the media on Monday that Moscow was open to resuming peace talks with Kyiv but that did not mean the war – which Russia has termed as “military operation”, would be halted. He said he saw no reason why talks should not continue with Ukraine. He admitted that the talks with Ukraine were not progressing as rapidly as they want, and accused the West of trying to derail negotiations by raising war crime accusations against Russian soldiers in Ukrainian town of Bucha – which Moscow has categorically denied on all occasions.

Notably, at least 20 bodies of people in civilian clothes along with over 100 mass graves were found in Bucha earlier this month, which Ukraine has claimed are war crimes committed by retreating Russian soldiers. However, as the Bucha killings were discovered only four days after the talks and with the recent attack at Kramatorsk railway station that killed at least 50 people and injured over 100 others, the negotiations have been halted.

Russia claimed to have destroyed S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems which had been supplied to Ukraine by a European country, Russia’s defence ministry said on Monday. The ministry said Russian sea-launched Kalibr missiles on Sunday destroyed four S-300 launchers which were concealed in a hangar on the outskirts of the Ukrainian city of Dnipro. Russia said 25 Ukrainian troops were hit in the attack. Russia did not say which European country had supplied the S-300 systems.

Lavrov further stated that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered suspension of military operation in Ukraine during the first round of talks- held in Belarus, but insisted that Moscow’s stand had changed since. After getting convinced that the Ukrainian side was not planning to reciprocate, Lavrov said, a decision was made that “during the next round of talks, there would be no pause (in military action) so long as a final agreement is not reached”.

Accusing Ukraine of departing from the draft agreed upon during the face-to-face talks in Turkey Last week, Lavrov said Ukraine presented a draft peace deal to Russia that comprised “unacceptable” elements, and added Kyiv was not interested in ending the fighting. Kyiv, however, dismissed the allegations saying it was a tactic to divert attention from the war crimes Russian troops committed.

At the peace talks in Turkey, Moscow promised to drastically scale back its operations from around Ukrainian capital of Kyiv and Chernihiv. Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia also said a meeting between Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky looks promising. But Kremlin has repeatedly turned down any possibility of the two leaders meeting, stressing that Russia’s stand on Crimea and Donbas remain unchanged.

Meanwhile, British intelligence said on Monday that Ukrainian troops have pushed back many Russian assaults in the country’s east. But the Ukrainian president on the other hand said tens of thousands of Russian troops were gearing up for a new offensive.

The Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his government was providing investigative support to efforts to document war crimes in Ukraine, and he said Russian President was responsible.

Austria’s chancellor will become the first European leader to visit Moscow since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Karl Nehammer said he would meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday and was expected to raise alleged war crimes in devastated areas around Kyiv that were under Russian occupation, including the town of Bucha.

Ukrainian authorities say over 1,200 bodies have been found in the area so far and that they are weighing cases against “500 suspects” including Putin and other top Russian officials.