Russia aims to erase Ukraine, its history and its people, the besieged country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said, as Moscow, in the face of international isolation, claimed to have seized its first large city amid continued heavy fighting.
A Russian defence ministry spokesperson said its forces had taken control of the strategically important city of Kherson on the Black Sea, with nearly 250,000 inhabitants. Local authorities said the port and train station had been captured overnight but denied the city had been occupied.
Ukraine: Putin’s miscalculations could see him strike harder
Ukraine has fought back much harder during the first week than Vladimir Putin expected, or very probably than his generals promised him, it would. But these are still the early stages of what could be a very nasty war.
Putin must have hoped that a few days after Russian forces invaded, Kyiv would have fallen. And he surely expected that Western countries, cowed and divided, would have accepted that he had reclaimed a territory that he says is historically part of Russia.
None of this has happened.
Ukrainians say they are fighting on in southern city of Kherson
Ukrainians said they were fighting on in the first sizeable city Russia claimed to have seized, while Moscow stepped up its lethal bombardment of major population centres that its invasion force has so far failed to tame.
With Moscow having failed in its aim of swiftly overthrowing Ukraine’s government after nearly a week, Western countries are worried that it is switching to new, far more violent tactics to blast its way into cities it had expected to easily take.
#Ukraine: In the vicinity of #Nikolaev, a MT-LBV (Or vehicle based on it) was abandoned by Russian troops, also leaving behind an AGS-17 automatic grenade launcher, 6x RPG-26, PG-7L, 2x RPG-7, and other ammo. pic.twitter.com/Bf8bvrKTuJ
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) March 2, 2022
