The battle for control of the industrial heart of Ukraine: Russia moves its elite units to the east

Russia displaced a dozen military units from the shattered port of Mariupol to eastern Ukraine and attacked cities across the region, Ukrainian authorities said Friday, as the two sides rushed into what could be an epic battle for control of the country's industrial heart.

Meanwhile, Russia reported that one soldier was killed and 27 others were missing after the fire on board the warship Moskva, which sunk a week ago after the Ukrainians boasted that they had carried out a missile attack. Moscow previously reported that everyone on board had been rescued.

The Russian Ministry of Defense did not recognize an attack on the ship. He went on to say that a fire broke out after ammunition was detonated, without explaining how it happened. The loss of the guided missile cruiser, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea fleet, was a humiliating setback for Moscow.

In Mariupol, largely reduced to smoking rubble by weeks of bombing, Russian state television showed the flag of Donetsk's pro-Moscow separatists hoisted on what it said was the highest point in the city, its television tower. He also showed what he said was the main building at the burning besieged Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol.

The Kremlin has sent more than 100,000 soldiers and mercenaries from Syria and Libya to the fight in Ukraine and is deploying more forces in the country every day, said Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council.

“We have a difficult situation, but our army is defending our state,” he said.

Numerous cities and towns were bombed in Donbas, the industrial region in the east that the Kremlin has declared the new and main theater of war, as well as in the Kharkov region just to the west and south, authorities said.

Russian forces hit some 2,000 Ukrainian fighters hiding inside the Azovstal plant, the last known hotbed of resistance in the strategic southern port city, the mayor's office reported.

“Every day they drop several bombs on Azovstal,” said Petro Andryushchenko, advisor to the mayor of Mariupol. “The fighting and bombing don't stop.”

A day earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared victory in the battle for Mariupol despite the reluctance of the steel mills. He ordered his forces not to storm the plant to destroy the defenders, but to seal it in an apparent attempt to force them to surrender.

Mariupol has acquired great importance in the war. Capturing it would deprive Ukrainians of a vital port and complete a land corridor between Russia and the Crimean peninsula, which Putin seized Ukraine in 2014.

It would also allow Putin to launch more of his forces into the potentially culminating battle for Donbas and its coal mines, factories and other industries, or what the Kremlin has now declared to be its main objective.

Danilov reported that between 12 and 14 of Russia's elite military units, in fact, left Mariupol and began to move east to participate in the fighting there.

“Now it will be difficult for our forces, because our boys in Mariupol were taking (those units) on themselves. It's his bravery and his feat,” he said.

Danilov also said that Kiev was able to deliver weapons by helicopter at great risk under cover of night to the Mariupol steel mill, which has been bombed for weeks.

Putin said that Russia gave Ukrainian forces inside the plant the option to surrender, with guarantees to keep them alive, and offered them “decent treatment and medical care,” according to an account of a phone call with European Council President Charles Michel provided by the Kremlin.

“But the Kiev regime does not allow them to seize this opportunity,” Putin said.

More than 100,000 people, compared to a population of around 430,000 before the war, are believed to be trapped in the city with little food, water or heat, and more than 20,000 civilians have died in the siege of nearly two months, according to Ukrainian authorities.

Repeated attempts to evacuate civilians from the city have failed because of what Ukrainians said was a continuous Russian bombing.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said humanitarian corridors for civil evacuations would not be opened in Ukraine on Friday because it was too dangerous. He urged civilians to “be patient” and “endure”.

Days after the Russian offensive to seize the east, the campaign has not yet turned into a complete assault, and military analysts say that Moscow's forces are still increasing and have not yet made significant progress in the Donbas or gained significant ground.

But the bombings killed three civilians in a small town and two villages on Friday in the Donetsk region, which is part of Donbas, regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko posted on a messaging app. Kyrylenko said that the Russians opened fire on at least 20 settlements in the region.

Slovyansk, a city of about 100,000 inhabitants in eastern Ukraine, was attacked overnight, according to the mayor, who said no injuries were reported but urged residents to leave in a bus convoy. In Rubizhne, Russian fire prevented attempts to bring buses, said the regional governor.

Heavy shelling was also heard during the night in Kharkov, a northeastern city outside Donbas but considered one of the gateways that the Russians intend to use to surround Ukrainian forces in Donbas from the north, south and east.

In other events, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that talks between the two countries have been “stalled” because Moscow has not received a response from Kiev to its latest proposals, the details of which have not been released.

Putin's chief negotiator in the talks, Vladimir Medinsky, said he had several lengthy talks on Friday with the head of the Ukrainian delegation. He didn't give details.

In addition, Rustam Minnekayev, a senior Russian military officer, publicly described Russian war objectives that appeared to be broader than those declared by the Kremlin in recent weeks. He said that Russian forces aim to take full control not only of eastern Ukraine but also of the south.

He said that such a move would open the way for the nation of Moldova, where Russia supports the separatist region of Transnistria. Moldovan officials are cautiously watching Putin's actions in Ukraine.

On Thursday, satellite photos by Maxar Technologies revealed what appeared to be rows and rows of more than 200 mass graves just excavated on the outskirts of Mariupol, prompting accusations that the Russians are trying to hide the massacre of civilians taking place in the city.

The initial estimates of Ukrainians said that the graves could contain 9,000 bodies. There was no immediate reaction from the Kremlin to satellite imagery.

The UN Human Rights Office once again condemned the Russian invasion. “During these eight weeks, international humanitarian law has not only been ignored but apparently ignored,” said the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet.

(With information from AP)

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