Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues as negotiations yield limited progress.
Video / AP
Analysts have begun raising questions on the whereabouts on a number of top Russian officials as the conflict in Ukraine approaches the end of its first month.
Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, one of Vladimir Putin's closest confidants, reportedly hasn't been seen in public for the last 11 days.
The head of Russia's General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, has also gone missing from the public eye.
The last news update on his Defense Ministry profile were dated March 11, where he handed out awards to Russian soldiers who had "distinguished themselves in the special military operation".
Russian journalist Dmitry Treschanin also noted that Russian state-run news agency RIA also haven't reported on Shoigu since March 11. He questioned whether Shoigu was in Chernobaevka, located outside of Kherson, the first major city to be occupied by Russian forces on March 2.
Official Russian sources told news outlet Agentstvo Media Shoigu has been experiencing "heart problems".
According to the Kremlin's website, the defense minister attended a high priority meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other high ranking members of the National Security Council.
The Kremlin is yet to publish any photos or footage of the meeting.
Shoigu has been described as a highly active figure in Russian media with public relations often being referred to as his "main weapon", making his sudden disappearance during Russia's largest conflict since the Cold War all the more curious.
According to Agentstvo, which carried out an investigation on Shoigu in 2021, theDefense Ministry employs "bigtime generals and private contractors whose services cost a lot of money" whose main job is to work on the image of the military leader.
Moscow Times reporter Jake Cordell tweeted on Wednesday about "lots of Telegram chatter today about the whereabouts of Russia's defense minister Sergei Shoigu," noting that Shoigu has not been seen with Putin since a meeting in Moscow on Feb. 27, just three days after beginning the invasion of Ukraine.
Good catch here by journalist Dmitry Treshchanin: Russia’s defense minister, Sergey Shoigu, hasn’t been seen in public for 11 days. (The head of the National Guard, a real nutter named Viktor Zolotov, also seems to be curiously missing.) https://t.co/sHaUm1BNSx
At an emergency Nato summit in Brussels, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pleaded with the Western allies via video for planes, tanks, rockets, air defence systems and other weapons, saying his country is "defending our common values".
US President Joe Biden, in Europe for a series of summits, gave assurances more aid is on its way.
Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance's leaders agreed to send equipment to help protect Ukraine against chemical attacks. Around the capital, Kyiv, and other areas, Ukrainian defenders appear to have fought Moscow's ground troops to a stalemate, raising fears that a frustrated Russian President Vladimir Putin will resort to chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
Ukraine's Foreign Ministry charged that Russian forces have taken 6000 Mariupol residents to camps against their will. Russian troops are confiscating identity documents from an additional 15,000 people in a section of Mariupol under Russian control, the ministry said.
Ukrainian military intelligence said Ukrainian civilians are being sent through a camp in Russian-controlled territory, then onward through southern regions of Russia to economically depressed parts of the country.
Some could be sent as far as the Pacific Ocean island of Sakhalin, Ukrainian intelligence said, and are being offered jobs on condition they don't leave for two years. The claims could not be independently verified. Russia has said it is evacuating thousands of civilians of their own free will.
Photos and videos after the naval attack in Berdyansk showed fire and thick plumes of smoke. Russian TV reported earlier this week that the vessel the Ukrainians claimed to have sunk, Orsk, was the first Russian warship to enter Berdyansk. The port was going to be used to deliver military equipment for the Russians, the report said.
Russian landing ship reportedly destroyed
Ukraine's navy today reported destroying Russia's large landing ship, Orsk, near the port city of Berdyansk.
A short Facebook statement about the ship was accompanied with photos and videos of fire and thick plumes of smoke in the port.
The Russian military has not commented on what happened to the ship.
Berdyansk has been under Russian control since February 27.
Zelenskyy earlier called on people worldwide to gather in public to show support for his embattled country as he prepared to address Biden and other Nato leaders gathered in Brussels on the one-month anniversary of the Russian invasion.
"Come to your squares, your streets. Make yourselves visible and heard," Zelenskyy said in English during an emotional video address today that was recorded in the dark near the presidential offices in Kyiv. "Say that people matter. Freedom matters. Peace matters. Ukraine matters."
When Russia unleashed its invasion on February 24 in Europe's biggest offensive since World War II, a swift toppling of Ukraine's government seemed likely. But a month into the fighting, Moscow is bogged down in a grinding military campaign of attrition after meeting fierce Ukrainian resistance.
Ukraine's navy reported today that it had sunk the Russian ship Orsk in the Sea of Asov near the port city of Berdyansk. It released photos and video of fire and thick smoke coming from the port area. Russia did not immediately comment on the claim.
Russia has been in possession of the port since February 27, and the Orsk had debarked armoured vehicles there on Monday for use in Moscow's offensive, the Zvezda TV channel of the Russian Defense Ministry said earlier this week. According to the report, the Orsk was the first Russian warship to enter Berdyansk, which is about 80km west along the coast from the besieged city of Mariupol.
To keep up the pressure on Russia, Zelenskyy said he would ask in a video conference with Nato members that the alliance provide "effective and unrestricted" support to Ukraine, including any weapons the country needs.
Biden was expected to discuss new sanctions and how to coordinate such measures, along with more military aid for Ukraine, with Nato members, and then talk with leaders of the G7 industrialised nations and the European Council in a series of meetings tomorrow.
On the eve of a meeting with Biden, European Union nations signed off on another €500 million ($789m) in military aid for Ukraine.
Heading in to the talks, Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters the alliance had already stepped up military support but needed to invest more to make good on pledged commitments.
Volodymyr, 80, rests inside his apartment damaged by shelling, in Kyiv, Ukraine, yesterday. Photo / AP
"The meeting today will demonstrate the importance of North America and Europe standing together facing this crisis," he said.
In its last update, Russia said on March 2 that nearly 500 of its soldiers had been killed and almost 1,600 wounded. Nato estimates, however, that between 7,000 to 15,000 Russian troops have been killed — the latter figure about what Russia lost in a decade of fighting in Afghanistan.
A senior Nato military official said the alliance's estimate was based on information from Ukrainian authorities, what Russia has released — intentionally or not — and intelligence gathered from open sources. The official spoke on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by Nato.
Ukraine also claims to have killed six Russian generals. Russia acknowledges just one dead general.
Ukraine has released little information about its own military losses, and the West has not given an estimate, but Zelenskyy said nearly two weeks ago that about 1,300 Ukrainian troops had been killed.
With its ground forces slowed or stopped by hit-and-run Ukrainian units armed with Western-supplied weapons, Russian President Vladimir Putin's troops are bombarding targets from afar, falling back on the tactics they used in reducing cities to rubble in Syria and Chechnya.
A senior US defence official said today that Russian ground forces appear to be digging in and setting up defensive positions 15 to 20km outside Kyiv as they make little to no progress toward the city center.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military assessments, said it appears the forces are no longer trying to advance into the city, and in some areas east of Kyiv, Ukrainian troops have pushed Russian soldiers farther away.
Instead, Russian troops appear to be prioritising the fight in the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions in the Donbas, in what could be an effort to cut off Ukrainian troops and prevent them from moving west to defend other cities, the official said. The US also has seen activity from Russian ships in the Sea of Azov, including what appear to be efforts to send landing ships ashore with supplies, including vehicles, the official said.
Despite evidence to the contrary, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov insisted the military operation is going "strictly in accordance" with plans.
In an ominous sign that Moscow might consider using nuclear weapons, senior Russian official Dmitry Rogozin said the country's nuclear arsenal would help deter the West from intervening in Ukraine.
A woman cleans the staircase of broken glass at an apartment building damaged by bombing in Kyiv. Photo / AP
"The Russian Federation is capable of physically destroying any aggressor or any aggressor group within minutes at any distance," said Rogozin, who heads the state aerospace corporation, Roscosmos, and oversees missile-building facilities. He noted in his televised remarks that Moscow's nuclear stockpiles include tactical nuclear weapons, designed for use on battlefields, along with far more powerful nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles.
US officials have long warned that Russia's military doctrine envisages an "escalate to deescalate" option of using battlefield nuclear weapons to force the enemy to back down in a situation when Russian forces face imminent defeat. Moscow has denied having such plans.
Rogozin, known for his bluster, did not make clear what actions by the West would be seen as meddling, but his comments almost certainly reflect thinking inside the Kremlin. Putin has warned the West that an attempt to introduce a no-fly zone over Ukraine would draw it into a conflict with Russia. Western nations have said they would not create a no-fly zone to protect Ukraine.
Zelenskyy noted in his national address that Ukraine has not received the fighter jets or modern air-defence systems it requested. He said Ukraine also needs tanks and anti-ship systems.
"It has been a month of defending ourselves from attempts to destroy us, wipe us off the face of the earth," he said.
US President Joe Biden smiles as he is greeted by Belgium's Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, left, on arrival at Melsbroek military airport in Brussels. Photo / AP
In Kyiv, where near-constant shelling and gunfire shook the city today as the two sides battled for control of multiple suburbs, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said at least 264 civilians have been killed since the war broke out. The independent Russian news outlet The Insider said Russian journalist Oksana Baulina had been killed by shelling in a Kyiv neighbourhood overnight.
In the south, the encircled port city of Mariupol has seen the worst devastation of the war, enduring weeks of bombardment and, now, street-by-street fighting. But Ukrainian forces have prevented its fall, thwarting an apparent bid by Moscow to fully secure a land bridge from Russia to Crimea, seized from Ukraine in 2014.
In their last update, over a week ago, Mariupol officials said at least 2,300 people had died, but the true toll is probably much higher. Airstrikes in the past week destroyed a theater and an art school where civilians were sheltering.
Zelenskyy said 100,000 civilians remain in the city, which had a population of 430,000 before the war. Efforts to get desperately needed food and other supplies to those trapped have often failed.
In the besieged northern city of Chernihiv, Russian forces bombed and destroyed a bridge that was used for aid deliveries and civilian evacuations, regional governor Viacheslav Chaus said.
Kateryna Mytkevich, 39, who arrived in Poland after fleeing Chernihiv, wiped away tears as she said the city is without gas, electricity or running water, and entire neighbourhoods have been destroyed.
"I don't understand why we have such a curse," she said.
