Ukraine War: Situation on the War Front Worsens with Acrimony Rising

Manas Dasgupta

NEW DELHI, April 15: The situation on the Russia – Ukraine war front seemed to be deteriorating rapidly with Ukraine claiming credit for sinking the Russian guided-missile cruiser Moskva and Moscow promising to further intensifying its attacks on the Ukrainian territories even while claiming control of a steel plant in the strategic Ukrainian port city of Mariupol.

While the Russia’s defence ministry warned on Friday it would intensify attacks on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv in response to strikes on Russian soil after accusing Ukraine of targeting Russian border towns, the Russian state television declared that the World War III had started within the sinking of Moskva. Though Russia said the naval cruiser was damaged after a fire, Ukraine claimed the credit of destroying the flagship vessel of Moscow’s Black Sea Fleet through its Neptune missile.

Following the sinking of the ship, the Russian official television commentator made the chilling statement, informing the viewers that “what it’s escalated into can safely be called World War III” and insisted “that’s entirely for sure.” It also called out for an all-out war including bombing and possibly discussing dropping “a single bomb on Kyiv” to keep world leaders from visiting Ukraine. “Now we’re definitely fighting against Nato infrastructure, if not Nato itself. We need to recognise that,” the official TV said.

“The number and scale of missile strikes against targets in Kyiv will increase in response to any terrorist attacks or sabotage committed by the Kyiv nationalist regime on Russian territory,” the Russian defence ministry said in its daily update. It added that Russian troops hit a “military” factory outside Kyiv late Thursday using Kalibr sea-based long-range missiles.

“As a result of the strike on the Zhulyansky machine-building plant ‘Vizar’, the workshops for the production and repair of long-range and medium-range anti-aircraft missile systems, as well as anti-ship missiles, were destroyed,” the ministry said. The ministry also said its S-400 missile system shot down a Ukrainian Mi-8 helicopter that carried out “an attack on civilians in the locality of Klimovo in Bryansk region on April 14.”

On Thursday, Moscow accused Ukraine of sending helicopters to bomb a village in Russia’s Bryansk region — not far from the border with Ukraine — injuring eight people. Later the same day, the head of Russia’s Belgorod region said a village close to the border was shelled by Ukraine, while residents from this and a nearby village had been evacuated as a precaution.

Kyiv has denied the helicopter attack, instead accusing Russia of staging the incidents to stir up “anti-Ukrainian hysteria” in the country. Separately, the Russian defence ministry said Friday its strategic rocket forces “eliminated up to 30 Polish mercenaries” in a strike on the village of Izyumskoe, not far from the city of Kharkiv in north-eastern Ukraine.

It said the mercenaries belonged to “a private Polish military company”, but did not say whether any Ukrainian troops were also killed. The reported rocket strike was one of the biggest against foreign targets in Ukraine since another missile killed what the Russian military claimed was up to 180 foreign mercenaries in Western Ukraine last month. Kyiv said at the time that only Ukrainian soldiers were killed.

Ukraine defence ministry spokesperson Oleksandr Motuzyanyk on Friday stated that with ongoing street fighting, the situation in Mariupol was hard. Stating that active fighting was ongoing around Illich Steel and Iron Works in Mariupol’s port area, he claimed Russia was concentrating its force on capturing Rubizhne, Popasna and Mariupol.

Russia has vowed to intensify its attack on the city after it alleged that Ukrainian forces have destroyed residential buildings in its Bryansk region. On Friday morning, explosions were heard in Kyiv and other cities such as Kharkiv and Kherson. The Ministry also claimed that the Ilyich steel and iron plant in Mariupol, Ukraine’s second-largest steel-maker, has been “liberated” from Ukrainian forces. Ukraine’s defence ministry spokesman said on Friday that for, the first time since the start of its invasion, Russia used long-range bombers to attack the besieged port city of Mariupol. He said Russia was concentrating its efforts on seizing the cities of Rubizhne, Popasna and Mariupol. Russia’s foreign ministry has also warned of unspecified ‘consequences’ if Finland and Sweden join NATO.

Meanwhile, UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, said more than five million people have fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion on February 24, United Nations figures showed on Friday. It said 4,796,245 million Ukrainians had fled across the borders, while the UN’s International Organization for Migration says nearly 215,000 third-country nationals have also escaped to neighbouring countries.