Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says his country needs more help from abroad if it is to survive the unprovoked war launched against it by Russia as Moscow intensifies its assault on eastern Ukraine.
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Speaking to South Korean lawmakers via video link on April 11, Zelenskiy said Russia will not stop the invasion it launched in late February unless it is forced to do so by the international community.
He added that Russia is now concentrating tens of thousands of troops for its next offensive on the eastern part of the country, after destroying massive amounts of infrastructure around Ukraine, including at least 300 health-care facilities.
Russian forces continue to push their offensive to establish control over the besieged southern port city of Mariupol, a key target whose capture would link up areas of Russian control to the west and east.
"Mariupol has been destroyed. There are tens of thousands of dead, but even despite this, the Russians are not stopping their offensive," Zelenskiy said in his address to South Korean lawmakers. Zelenskiy's figures could not be confirmed.
Zelenskiy said late on April 11 in a video message to the nation that Ukraine could unblock Mariupol if it received enough heavy weapons.
"Unfortunately, we are not getting as much as we need to end this war sooner. To completely destroy the enemy on our land, and to fulfill those tasks that are obvious to...our people. In particular, to unblock Mariupol," he said. "If we got planes and enough heavy armored vehicles, the necessary artillery, we could do it."
Britain’s Defense Ministry said on April 11 that Russian forces continued shelling into the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine, while Ukrainian forced repelled several assaults, destroying Russian tanks, vehicles, and artillery equipment.
In the face of the ratcheting up of operations by Moscow, the international community continues to seek a cease-fire.
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer says he held "direct, open, and hard" talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin over Moscow's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
A statement from Nehammer's office said the meeting in the Russian capital on April 11, which lasted just over an hour, was not "a visit of friendship."
"I mentioned the serious war crimes in Bucha and other locations and stressed that all those responsible have to be brought to justice," Nehammer said in the statement.
Nehammer’s statement said the Austrian chancellor also told Putin "very clearly" that Western sanctions against Russia "will remain and be intensified as long as people keep dying in Ukraine."
He also warned of the "urgent" need for humanitarian corridors "to bring water and food into besieged towns and (to) remove women, children and the injured."
Meanwhile, foreign ministers from the EU are meeting in Luxembourg with International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan over possible war crimes being committed by Russian troops. Moscow says it has not targeted civilians, but evidence is mounting of atrocities committed in several areas of the country.
Speaking as he arrived for the meeting, the bloc's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, told reporters that "sanctions are always on the table."
Zelenskiy said that at least 300 health-care facilities alone have been hit by Russian attacks, while international outrage continues as more video appears from the town of Bucha, where hundreds of bodies, many with their hands bound and with signs of torture, were found after the Russian retreat. Russia has falsely claimed the scenes in Bucha were staged.
Adding to the fury, a Russian air strike last week on a train station in Kramatorsk that was crowded with civilians looking to flee the fighting killed dozens.
Clearing The Lethal Litter Of War
About one-quarter of Ukraine's 44 million people have been forced from their homes, cities turned into rubble, and thousands of people killed or injured -- many of them civilians.
Maxar Technologies on April 10 published satellite images showing a Russian military convoy stretching some 13 kilometers headed south in Ukraine toward the Donbas region as the Kremlin concentrates its fighting capacity in the east.
The convoy may be headed toward Izyum, a town in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region that Russian forces control. Izyum is located near the border with the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, where some of the most intense fighting has been taking place.
A satellite image shows armored vehicles and trucks of a Russian military convoy moving south through the town of Velykyi Burluk in eastern Ukraine on April 8. Maxar Technologies said the convoy consisted of hundreds of vehicles and extended for at least 13 kilometers.
Russia is refocusing its military attack on the Donbas, which encompasses Ukraine’s eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, after facing setbacks in other areas of the country, including Kyiv and Sumy.
Ahead of the expected offensive, the Kremlin tapped Army General Aleksandr Dvornikov, who commands Russia’s forces in the southern military district, to lead the war in Ukraine.
Putin may now be trying to concentrate forces to take control of the Donbas and declare victory by early May, ahead of a national holiday that celebrates the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, according to U.S. officials.
His decision to appoint Dvornikov, 60, as the new commander of the Ukraine campaign may be a further indication Russia plans a large-scale offensive in the east, analysts said.
The general has a notorious reputation for his conduct of the war in Syria, where Russia bombed civilian districts. Putin awarded Dvornikov the Hero of Russia medal, one of the country’s highest awards, for his work in Syria.