Russo-Ukraine War - 10 March 2022
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"To initiate a war of aggression... is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." [Judgment of the International Military Tribunal]
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a "special military operation" in Ukraine in response to the appeal of the leaders of the "Donbass republics" for help. That attack is a blatant violation of the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine. Putin stressed that Moscow's plans did not include the occupation of Ukrainian territories, the goal is the demilitarization and denazification of the country. As stated in the Russian Defense Ministry, the Russian military does not strike at cities, but disable only the military infrastructure, so nothing threatens the civilian population.
US intelligence chiefs said they thought China, which has refused to condemn Russia or call the attack an invasion, was "unsettled" by events in Ukraine. "I do believe that the Chinese leadership, President Xi (Jinping) in particular, is unsettled," Central Intelligence Agency (CAI) Director William Burns said. "By what he's seen, partly because his own intelligence doesn't appear to have told him what was going to happen."
At the Senate Intelligence Committee's annual hearing on worldwide threats to US security, US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said Russian forces are operating with "reckless disregard" for civilians as they face stronger-than-expected resistance in Ukraine."The Russian military has begun to loosen its rules of engagement to achieve their military objectives," said Haines. US intelligence agencies are tracking Russia's actions to hold them to account, Haines added.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he feared Russia would deploy chemical weapons in Ukraine. "The stuff that you're hearing about chemical weapons, this is straight out of their playbook," Johnson said in an interview with Sky News. "They start saying that there are chemical weapons that have been stored by their opponents or by the Americans, and so when they themselves deploy chemical weapons, as I fear they may, they have a sort of ... fake story, ready to go."
On March 10, the Russian-inspired Readovka map "became noticeably less red. This is due to the fact that the boundaries of the fronts in the north were clarified. However, this does not mean that the RF Armed Forces are retreating. On the contrary, significant progress can be seen in these areas."
Ukrainian troops launched a counterattack to drive occupying Russian forces from a village in the Kyiv region. In the heart of Irpin, a satellite city located around 20 kilometres northwest of Kyiv, the entire city is mounting resistance against Russian forces advancing towards the Ukrainian capital. The situation in the area was relatively calm. The Russians continued to amass its forces in direction of Bucha, Hostomel and Yasnohorodka. The civilian evacuation from Irpin continued. According to British/US intel, Russian forces will launch a massive attack on Kyiv no later than Sunday 13 March 2022.
Reporting from the last checkpoint between Irpin, a northern suburb of Kyiv, and the Ukrainian capital, FRANCE 24’s Cyril Payen said the Russian offensive is pushing on amid stiff Ukrainian resistance. Payen was able to enter Irpin, which he described as a ghost town amid desperate scenes, including bodies lying on the frontline since they could not be collected due to the heavy fighting. “Russian tanks are around 200 meters away, I would say 50 percent of Irpin is taken by the Russian army and the other 50 percent is defended by Ukrainian troops,” said Payen.
On the ground, the fighting continued as the Russian army attacked various Ukrainian cities in a slow-motion offensive, which might be part of Moscow's military strategy to tire Kiev’s forces to force them to surrender one by one. While the Russians have made substantial gains across southern Ukraine, claiming some crucial port cities across the Black Sea coast, slowly moving to encircle the country’s two biggest cities, Kiev and Kharkiv, they have not been able to implement a full-scale assault after two weeks of brutal fighting.
The civilian evacuation from Sumy successfully continued. Ukrainian sources reports up to 50 thousand civilians left the city in total. Romny was reportedly under siege, confirming that the Russian forces bypassed the city when moving from Sumy towards Pryluky.
In Kharkiv Oblast, Russian recon/sabotage group (DRG) attacked a Ukrainian checkpoint in the village of Andriivka at night. The assault was repelled by a Ukrainian Border Guard unit stationed there. Ukrainian forces conducted a successful counter-attack in the direction of Dernachi, liberating the settlement and lifting the enemy pressure in the area. The situation in Izium reached a critical stage. Some civilians were able to left towards Slovyansk, but most remained in the town. It was unclear if there were still some Ukrainian elements in Izium. The town is heavily damaged.
Russian forces shelling Mykolaiv from the north-east and north, Ukrainian forces continue to dig trenches and setting up barricades. The moment of Russian attack on the city was approaching. Meanwhile, the enemy pushed north of Mykolaiv, alongside Inhulets river and connected with its forces near Bashtanka. Fighting was also reported from Voznesensk, but Ukrainian forces are successfully holding the ground. In Kherson Oblast, Russian troops pushed north towards Kryvyi Rih from Nova Kakhovka. They captured Mylove, Dudchany and Bila Krynytsia, despite Ukrainian air strikes in the area. The cities of Nikopol and Kryvyi Rih prepares for defense.
Putin denied that Russia is using any conscripted soldiers and will not use them in “combat operations”. The Russian president also pointed out that “Nor will there be any additional mobilisation of reserves” against Ukrainian forces. The Red Cross said more than 400,000 people are trapped in Mariupol without humanitarian aid and evacuation corridors, and the city faces "apocalyptic" conditions. A key port city on the coast of the Sea of Azov, Mariupol is major transit point on the road to Crimea, and analysts have speculated that Russian might seek to seize the city as part of a "land bridge" to the occupied Crimea Peninsula.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba met with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in Turkey. But the talks failed to produce a breakthrough. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba says a meeting with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, the first high-level talks between the two countries since Moscow launch an unprovoked invasion of its neighbor last month, failed to make progress on a cease-fire. Kuleba said after the meeting in the Turkish resort city of Antalya 15 days into the war, that Lavrov did not commit to ensuring a humanitarian corridor in the besieged city of Mariupol.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris accused Russia of committing "atrocities of unimaginable proportions" in Ukraine as she traveled to Warsaw amid controversy over a Polish plan to supply fighter jets to Ukraine. "Absolutely, there should be an investigation and we should all be watching and I have no question that the eyes of the world are on this war and what Russia has done in terms of this aggression and these atrocities," Harris said.
Russia's defence ministry has denied bombing a maternity and children's hospital in Mariupol, accusing Ukraine of conducting a "staged provocation". The ministry said that Russia carried out no air strikes on ground targets in that area on that day, respecting an agreed "silent regime". Twitter removed content from Russian Embassy UK claiming the Mariupol maternity hospital bombing was staged. Moscow's claim that the attack -- which killed three people, including a child -- was a "staged provocation" sparked a Twitter storm. Twitter told the BBC: “We took enforcement action against the Tweets you referenced as they were in violation of the Twitter Rules, specifically our Hateful Conduct and Abusive Behavior policies related to the denial of violent events.”
Harris's trip, aimed at bolstering U.S. support for its Eastern European allies, has been overshadowed by an open disagreement between Warsaw and Washington over the Polish proposal, which called for sending MiG warplanes to Ukraine, by way of a U.S. military base in Germany. Asked at a joint news conference in Warsaw on March 10 with President Andrzej Duda about the jet dispute, Harris dodged a reporter's question. "We're making deliveries every day, in terms of what we can do, in terms of assistance and, in particular, when you look at what we've been doing, as it relates to anti-tank and anti-defense systems," she said, according to a White House transcript.
The European Union should stop using Russian fossil fuels by 2027, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, adding she would propose a plan for doing so in mid-May. "Proposal for a RePowerEU plan to phase out our dependencies on Russian fossil fuels by 2027," she wrote as EU leaders met in Versailles to discuss the issue.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said half the population of the Ukrainian capital has fled. But he warned that the city is now "a fortress. Every street, every building, every checkpoint has been fortified." Russia’s defence ministry said it would open humanitarian corridors from five cities: Kyiv, Suma, Kharkiv, Mariupol and Chernihiv. On Thursday, not a single civilian was able to leave the besieged city of Mariupol as Russian forces failed to respect a temporary ceasefire to enable evacuations, said Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.
The United Nations says that more than 2.3 million refugees have now left Ukraine since the start of Russia's invasion last month, with almost 161,7000 fleeing in the previous 24 hours. The head of the UNHCR, the UN's refugee agency, said that the agency needed about $500 million for its emergency work in Ukraine and neighboring countries, of which almost $300 million has been received so far, two-thirds of which came from private donations.
Most Ukrainian refugees have crossed into Poland, where their number now stands at more than 1.42 million. Poland's border guards said that some 117,600 people crossed the border the previous day. However, there are now signs that the exodus has peaked and the number of daily crossings is going down.
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