Russia-Ukraine war live updates: Putin needs to win war in next 10 days or risk failure: Ex-general
Vladimir Putin will need to take drastic action to overcome Ukrainian forces before a critical moment is reached.
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Vladimir Putin’s forces will have to take control of Ukraine within 10 days or risk their brutal invasion failing, a former top US commander says.
General Ben Hodges served as commander of United States Army Europe for three years believes Ukraine keep up the fight for a week and a half due to three major failings of the Russian military.
“Russia’s decision to transition to a war of attrition – they’re smashing cities, putting civilians on the road because of fear of being murdered – they need three things to do this. And they don’t have those three things,” General Hodges told US broadcaster MSNBC.
“They don’t have the time, they don’t have the manpower, and I don’t think they have the ammunition. So, in about 10 days, in my assessment – and this is assuming that we, the West, not only continue but accelerate the delivery of the capabilities Ukrainians need to destroy Russian long-range artillery and rocket launchers and missile sites – assuming we do that, then I think within the next 10 days, Russia is going to culminate,” he said.
“That means they won’t be able to continue the attack. So it’s kind of a race, actually. If we give the Ukrainians enough, where they can outlast Russia until Russia culminates, then in my assessment, unless something dramatically different happens, it’s about 10 days.”
It comes a Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky again urged NATO to impose a no-fly zone over his country, saying it would protect not only Ukraine but the countries of the Atlantic alliance from Russian air attacks.
But the United States and NATO allies refused for the same reasons they have been citing since Moscow invaded Ukraine on February 24: that any attempt to establish a no-fly zone would place them in direct conflict with nuclear-armed Russia and spark a wider, more dangerous conflict.
STUDENTS GET WARM WELCOME
Young Ukrainian refugees have received a heartwarming welcome to their first day at their new school in Italy.
In the clip, the two siblings – identified only as Dmitri, 10, and Victoria, 8 – anxiously wait outside the front doors of the Don Milani institute in Naples last week, according to British broadcaster ITV.
The video has been viewed more than 4.2 million times.
When the doors open, they are greeted with loud cheers from teachers and students, with many seen waving Ukrainian flags.
It appears the young refugees don’t understand what’s going on at first before their new classmates take their hands and walk them into the school building.
Around 35,000 Ukrainians refugees who fled after Russia invaded Ukraine three weeks ago have entered Italy, most through its northeastern border with Slovenia.
The UN said almost three million had fled Ukraine.
HORROR SCENES AS RUSSIA ATTACKS CONTINUE
Ukraine woke to scenes from “an apocalypse movie” as Russia targeted suburbs and factories across the country, with the country’s defence minister comparing Russian invaders to “orcs”.
Invoking Sauron’s invading army in Lord of the Rings, Defence Minister Olekssi Reznikov said Kyiv now looked like an apocalyptical world after air strikes hit a residential building and plane factory, killing at least one.
Another two died near Kharkiv, including a 15-year-old boy, after shelling hit a kindergarten in the town of Chuguiv, according to regional prosecutors.
“Sumy, Kharkiv, Mariupol-its terrible. This what the (Russian) world carries with it: deaths of ppl, destruction not only cities but democracy, rights, freedoms. They aren't Slavs. They’re orcs. But we’ll win,” Reznikov wrote on Twitter.
It came as civilians began evacuating the besieged southeastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol along a new humanitarian corridor.
More than 160 civilian cars have been able to drive out of Mariupol on the road to Berdyansk, the city council said on Telegram.
It is the most significant evacuation of the Mariupol since Russian forces surrounded the city early this month, but an estimated 400,000 remain trapped.
While some found a way out of the city, a convoy of food, water and medical supplies remained unable to find a safe route into the city.
Aid groups are warning that large swathes are on the verge of starvation and that mass graves are already being used to bury the 2,200 residents already killed under the heavy Russian bombardment.
In Kyiv, authorities are stockpiling food and water to avoid a humanitarian crisis if the city is similarly besieged like Mariupol.
A survivor of the missile attack that killed one person, revised down from an earlier toll of two dead, said “people were running and screaming” as the building burned around them.
“We do not have a military target near us,” Yuriy Yurchik told The New York Times.
“We did not think we ourselves would be a target.”
A Kremlin spokesman said Russian forces have so far held off on a full-scale onslaught on large cities “because the civilian losses would be large” but that Moscow “does not rule out the possibility of putting large cities under its full control”.
Negotiations between Russia and Ukraine took a “technical pause” without any progress, but plans to resume on Tuesday local time.
Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky will address the US Congress in a virtual speech the following day where he is expected to pressure president Joe Biden to provide Kyiv with fighter jets.
China, meanwhile, accused the US of spreading “disinformation” after claims that Russia had sought military help from Beijing, which the Kremlin has denied.
30,000 NATO TROOPS IN WAR GAMES ON RUSSIA’S BORDER
Major military exercises involving 30,000 NATO troops and partner countries kicked off in Norway on Monday as tensions escalate between the West and Russia over the Ukraine war.
Cold Response 2022, planned long before Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, aims to test how Norway would manage Allied reinforcements on its soil, in line with Article 5 of NATO’s charter which requires member states to come to the aid of another member state under attack.
“It’s a defensive exercise”, said General Yngve Odlo, in charge of Cold Response.
“It’s not a military operation with an offensive purpose”, he told television channel TV2.
Organised every two years, the naval, air and ground drills are held over vast swathes of Norway’s territory, including above the Arctic Circle.
They will however stay several hundred kilometres away from Norway’s border with Russia.
Russia declined Norway’s invitation to send observers.
“Any build-up of NATO military capabilities near Russia’s borders does not help to strengthen security in the region”, Russia’s embassy in Norway told AFP last week.
Russia “has the capacity out there to follow (the exercise) in an entirely legitimate manner”, Odlo said.
“I really hope they respect existing agreements”, he added.
As during previous editions of the exercise, neighbouring Sweden and Finland, which are military non-aligned but increasingly close partners of NATO, will also participate in Cold Response.
Russia’s invasion has renewed debate in the two Nordic countries about possible NATO membership.
Some 200 aircraft and 50 vessels are also taking part in the manoeuvres, which last until April 1.
The exercise began Monday with naval operations and the deployment on land of part of NATO’s rapid reaction force.
US HOLDS ‘DEEP CONCERNS’ ON RUSSIA-CHINA ‘ALIGNMENT’
The United States expressed concern on Monday about “alignment” between Russia and China, after high-ranking US and Chinese officials met for seven hours on the Ukraine war and other security issues.
“We do have deep concerns about China’s alignment with Russia,” a senior US official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity, adding: “It was a very candid conversation.” US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Yang Jiechi, the Chinese Communist Party’s chief diplomat, met in a Rome hotel for what a White House readout described as a “substantial” session.
The White House said the two officials also “underscored the importance of maintaining open lines of communication between the United States and China.”
Moscow and Beijing have drawn closer in what Washington sees as an increasingly hostile alliance of the authoritarian nuclear powers.
Sullivan’s meeting with the top Chinese diplomat was planned weeks ago, officials say, but the encounter took on new importance against the backdrop of President Vladimir Putin’s onslaught against Ukrainian cities.
The officials were also meeting a day after US media reported that Russia has asked China for military and economic assistance as its troops struggle to make ground in Ukraine and its economy faces devastation from Western sanctions.
The New York Times, citing unnamed US officials, said there was no indication whether China had responded, but China has so far sent mixed signals on Russia’s bloody invasion and US officials say the jury is still out on how Beijing will act.
FOX NEWS REPORTER INJURED IN UKRAINE
A correspondent for Fox News was injured and hospitalised on Monday while covering the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the US television network said.
Benjamin Hall, a Briton who covers the State Department for Fox News, was injured while “newsgathering outside of Kyiv,” Fox News said in a statement.
“We have a minimal level of details right now, but Ben is hospitalised and our teams on the ground are working to gather additional information,” it said.
Irina Venediktova, Ukraine’s prosecutor general, said in a Facebook post that a British journalist had received shrapnel wounds to both legs.
She did not identify the journalist but posted a picture of a US congressional press pass belonging to a Fox News reporter.
Prayers for @BenjaminHallFNC and his family https://t.co/mHdeZln4kB
— Michael Ruiz (@mikerreports) March 14, 2022
In a statement, the State Department Correspondents’ Association said it was “horrified to learn that our fellow correspondent Benjamin Hall was injured as he covered the Ukraine war.”
“We know Ben for his warmth, good humor and utmost professionalism,” it said.
“We wish Ben a quick recovery and call for utmost efforts to protect journalists who are providing an invaluable service through their coverage in Ukraine.”
It comes after a US journalist was shot dead and another wounded in Irpin on Sunday, a frontline suburb of Kyiv that has witnessed some of the fiercest fighting since Russia invaded Ukraine.
Video documentary maker Brent Renaud, 50, was working for Time Studios on a project about global refugee issues, the media outlet said.
The International Federation of Journalists identified the wounded journalist as American photographer Juan Arredondo.
A Ukrainian who had been in the same car as the Americans was also wounded, according to a medic at the scene.
LARGEST EXODUS SINCE WORLD WAR II
More than 2.8 million refugees have fled Ukraine in what is the largest refugee exodus in Europe since World War II, the United Nations said.
The UN said more than one million children had fled Ukraine in search of safety and protection.
“They need peace NOW,” the UN children’s agency added.
The UN initially estimated that up to four million people could leave, but last week admitted that figure might well be revised upwards.
Before the conflict, Ukraine had a population of 37 million in the regions under government control, excluding Russia-annexed Crimea and the pro-Russian separatist regions in the east.
“People continue to flee the war in Ukraine every minute,” said the UN’s International Organization for Migration.
Some 127,000 third-country nationals, mainly students and migrant workers, are among the 2.8 million who have fled Ukraine, IOM said.
MOSCOW SAYS 23 DEAD IN DONETSK
Russia said Monday that an attack by Kyiv’s forces on the separatist stronghold of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine had left 23 people dead, with the military accusing Kyiv of committing a “war crime”.
Moscow accused Ukraine’s army of firing a Tochka-U missile at a residential area in Donetsk, in one of the most serious attacks on the city since Russia sent troops into Ukraine over two weeks ago.
“The use of such weapons in a city where there are no firing positions of the armed forces,” Russian defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said, “is a war crime.” Official separatist Telegram channels distributed photos and video of the aftermath, showing burnt out cars, bodies strewn in the street, and damage to shops.
In an interview with Russian state-run television, the head of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic, Denis Pushilin, said the shot-down rocket had inflicted damage to residential areas.
“People were waiting in line near an ATM and were standing at a bus stop,” he said in remarks broadcast on Russian television.
“There are children among the dead,” Pushilin said, adding that the casualty count would have been higher had the rocket not been downed.
SHOCK PHOTOS REVEAL AIRSTRIKES ON KYIV
At least one person died and six were wounded following an air strike on a residential building in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv.
The country’s emergency service issued a statement confirming the fatal blast, saying it occurred at 7.40am local time, and the bodies of two people were found in a nine-storey apartment building.
Three people were hospitalised and nine people were treated on the spot,” the emergency service said on Facebook, adding that the building was in Kyiv’s Obolon district.
It comes as Antonov Airport in northern Kyiv has also been hit by Russian shelling.
The Kremlin has also made good on a threat to target Western munition supply lines and foreign soldiers in Ukraine, bombing a military base on the Polish border and bringing war one step closer to Europe.
For 2.5 hours, Russian aircraft fired more than 30 cruise missiles on a sprawling Ukrainian military base at Yavoriv and the village of Starychi less than 25km from the Polish border and 40km from Ukraine’s culture capital Lviv.
The pounding could be heard and felt in Lviv that has been a transit point for more than 2.6 million refugees fleeing the conflict, 10,000 people arriving each day in the city.
Yavoriv is very close to one of the key exit point to Poland for refugees but also is a central transit point for weapons, ammunitions and aid from the European Union, the US, Canada and as far away as Australia. It is also where foreign fighters are entering the conflict.
As late as November last year, the base hosted NATO forces in training drills and it is not known if their trainers were still present on the base at the time of the attack which killed 35 people and injured 134 others.
Its use by foreign forces for training has long niggled Russia and has been part of the Kremlin’s narrative of proof NATO was encroaching too close to Russia’s border albeit with 1200km of Ukraine in between.
The Kremlin claimed the death toll at the base was 180 foreign fighters it said it was targeting as well as a huge stockpile of munitions from the West. The Kremlin considers any foreign fighters as mercenaries.
It is understood there are 20,000 foreign fighters from 52 nations are fighting for Ukraine as a foreign brigade but the Kremlin’s death claim could not be verified. For its part, the Kremlin has opened 16 recruitment centres in Syria offering USD$600 a month to kill Ukrainians, Russian aircraft are in Latakia in south east Syria to collect them.
Britain said the attack close to Poland marked a “significant escalation” of the conflict.
Also targeted by Russian was Tu-95MS strategic bombers armed with cruise missiles was a military base in Ivano-Frankivsk south of Lviv, the second such attack in as many days.
There was fighting on at least half a dozen other fronts including shelling on Chernihiv northeast of the capital and attacks on the southern town of Mykolayiv, where officials said nine people had been killed.
In Irpin a freelance award-winning American journalist, formerly employed by the New York Times, was shot and killed by Russian forces and another journalist was wounded. Many Ukrainian journalists have been killed getting the stories from the front out.
An evacuation train heading west from Donetsk was stuck with shrapnel killing a conductor and a mayor of a contested town was kidnapped by Russian troops, the second mayor in as many days as Moscow bizarrely appoints its own “interim mayors”. Protests in occupied territories against kidnappings and occupation are banned.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of trying to break his country apart and starting “a new stage of terror” with the alleged detention of mayors with Russians using blackmail and bribery in an attempt to force local officials, notably in the southern Kherson region, to form “pseudo republics”.
UKRAINIANS IN AUSTRALIA WANT TO SUPPLY DRONES
Australian Ukrainians are looking at supplying drones to help their brethren in the fight against Russian invaders.
A top Melbourne lawyer has also been co-opted to help draw up a war crimes case against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Melbourne-based Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations (AFUO) co-chairman Stefan Romaniw has travelled to the Polish-Ukrainian border as part of an international delegation to check on the flow of refugees from the war-torn country.
He is just 20km from the Ukrainian military base of Yavoriv, which was hit Sunday night by a sustained Russian missile attack, killing dozens.
“Seeing the huge numbers crossing the border mothers, children shocked after last night’s hit was depressing,” Mr Romaniw said.
“The determination of these people is bloody unbelievable.”
Mr Romaniw, who is also a vice-president of the Ukrainian World Congress, is in the Polish border town of Przemsyl with other leaders of the organisation.
“There are four US Congress members here with us, and they were asking the people, ‘what do you want us to do?’”.
“They said, ‘close the skies and give us more military assistance, we are happy to forgo more humanitarian assistance, give us military power, we’ll fight this to the end.’”
Mr Romaniw said Ukrainian authorities had asked his group AFUO to help buy military drones for the war effort.
“That’s something we’re going to look at,” he said.
“We want to give them the weapons they need to continue the fight.”
“Things like body armour are critical because the territorial defence groups are the last cabs off the rank, in a sense they’re the ones holding the fort.”
Also on his way to the Polish border is Melbourne Ukrainian Nick Janiw, who will help refugees and co-ordinate humanitarian from a new AFUO office in Przemsyl.
“I will spend the first week assessing what’s happening there and find the best ways that people can be helped,” he said at Melbourne Airport before boarding a flight.
“I have a background in property management, so I’ll be working on a temporary accommodation project, and also help to provide warm clothes, blankets and sleeping bags for refugees.”
Mr Romaniw said AFUO had also co-opted Melbourne QC William Lye to help in drawing up an international war crimes case against President Putin.
AFUO is taking donations to buy nonlethal military aid for Ukraine.
Go to ozeukes.com/u-help/
— John Masanauskas
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Originally published as Russia-Ukraine war live updates: Putin needs to win war in next 10 days or risk failure: Ex-general
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