Ukraine war: 40-mile convoy descends on Kyiv as Russia resorts to ‘medieval tactics’

Kyiv is today bracing for dramatic escalation in bloodshed as terrifying satellite images revealed a column of Russian tanks and artillery almost 40 miles long snaking towards the Ukrainian capital – seemingly with the aim of surrounding and besieging it. 

The convoy is made up of hundreds of tanks, artillery pieces, attack vehicles and support trucks that stretches all the way from Hostomel – around 15 miles from central Kyiv – to the village of Prybirs’k – some 40 miles away – mobilised with the intention of bombing the capital into submission.

Observers warn that Vladimir Putin‘s invasion of his ex-Soviet is about to enter a brutal new phase, abandoning precision strikes against key infrastructure and military bases that met with crushing defeats in the early days of the war and instead resorting to ‘medieval tactics’ to try and force a bloody victory.

It mirrors the tactics that Russia’s military used against rebel forces in Syria while fighting alongside dictator Bashar al-Assad, where cities were surrounded and ordered to surrender before Putin’s men launched indiscriminate bombing campaigns that killed thousands of civilians and levelled entire neighbourhoods.  

The city of Mariupol, in Ukraine’s south, said early Tuesday that bombardment had already started – with the mayor saying it is under ‘constant shelling’ by Russian forces using artillery, Grad rockets, and fighter jets targeting civilians areas such as schools and homes which had left many dead, including women and children. 

Power to the city, which is in danger of being surrounded by Russian forces, has been cut – region head Pavlo Kyrylenko said Tuesday – but it remains under Ukrainian control.

Kherson, another key city located in southern Ukraine with a bridge over the Dnieper River, also came under bombardment by Russian forces today as missiles landed near civilian buildings on the outskirts.

Kharkiv, in the east, continued to be under bombardment today with a large rocket landing in front of the civilian public administration building – leaving the interior heavily damaged. It came just a day after Kharkiv was hit by cluster bombs that landed near a shopping centre, killing at least 11 people and leaving dozens more wounded. 

Ukraine’s ambassador to the UN later said that a thermobaric ‘vacuum bomb’ was also used on the country, though did not saying exactly when or where.

President Volodymyr Zelensky last night accused Russia of committing ‘war crimes’ and called for an investigation to be established. The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court at The Hauge said shortly afterwards that a probe would be established ‘as soon as possible’.

Philip Reeker, America’s Charge d’Affairs to the UK, warned today that ‘medieval tactics are certainly what we can expect’ going forward. ‘[That is] exactly what President Putin and the Russian military have in mind,’ he added. 

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch both said that Russian forces appeared to have used widely banned cluster munitions, with Amnesty accusing them of attacking a preschool in northeastern Ukraine while civilians took shelter inside.

Oksana Markarova, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, told reporters after meeting with members of the U.S. Congress that Russia had used a thermobaric weapon, known as a vacuum bomb, in its invasion of her country.

‘They used the vacuum bomb today,’ Markarova said after a meeting with lawmakers. ‘…The devastation that Russia is trying to inflict on Ukraine is large.’

A vacuum bomb, or thermobaric weapon, sucks in oxygen from the surrounding air to generate a high-temperature explosion, typically producing a blast wave of a significantly longer duration than that of a conventional explosive and is capable of vaporizing human bodies.

There has been no official confirmation that thermobaric weapons have been used in the conflict in Ukraine. CNN reported that one of its teams had spotted a Russian thermobaric multiple rocket launcher near the Ukrainian border early on Saturday afternoon. 

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said she had seen reports but did not have confirmation that Russia had used such weapons. ‘If that were true, it would potentially be a war crime,’ she told a press briefing, noting that there are international organizations that would assess that and President Joe Biden’s administration ‘would look to be a part of that conversation.’

The Russian embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.

Markarova said Ukraine was working actively with the Biden administration and Congress to obtain more weapons and tougher sanctions.

‘They should pay, they should pay a heavy price,’ she told reporters after leaving the meeting.

One lawmaker who attended the meeting, Democratic Representative Brad Sherman, said the Ukrainians had asked for a U.S.-enforced no-fly zone over Ukraine but that he felt that was too dangerous because it could provoke conflict with Russia.

Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab has warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin could retaliate with increasingly ‘heavy-handed tactics’ if his invasion of Ukraine faces further hitches.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘We can expect, for every stutter and stumble, him to try and come back for even more heavy-handed tactics, but that is a sign that the initial phase at least – and this is going to be a long haul – has not lived up to his expectations.’

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has thanked the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge for their support amid the Russian invasion.

‘Olena and I are grateful to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge that, at this crucial time, when Ukraine is courageously opposing Russia’s invasion, they stand by our country and support our brave citizens,’ he tweeted.

‘Good will triumph.’

Amnesty International said international humanitarian law prohibits the use of inherently indiscriminate weapons such as cluster munitions. Launching indiscriminate attacks that kill or injure civilians constitutes a war crime.

As the bloodshed ramps up, the Kremlin has found itself increasingly isolated by tough economic sanctions that have sent its currency plummeting. 

After a first, five-hour session of talks between Ukraine and Russia yielded no stop in the fighting, both sides agreed to another meeting in coming days. Ukraine’s embattled president, however, said he believed the stepped-up shelling was designed to force him into concessions.

‘I believe Russia is trying to put pressure (on Ukraine) with this simple method,’ Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said late Monday in a video address. He did not offer details of the talks that took place Monday, but he said Kyiv was not prepared to make concessions ‘when one side is hitting another with rocket artillery.’

Six days into the invasion, the Russian military’s movements have been stalled by fierce resistance on the ground and a surprising inability to dominate the airspace. Many Ukrainian civilians, meanwhile, spent another night huddled in shelters, basements or corridors.

‘I sit and pray for these negotiations to end successfully, so that they reach an agreement to end the slaughter,’ said Alexandra Mikhailova, weeping as she clutched her cat in a shelter in Mariupol. Around her, parents tried to console children and keep them warm.

The Kremlin has twice in as many days raised the specter of nuclear war and put on high alert an arsenal that includes intercontinental ballistic missiles and long-range bombers. Stepping up his rhetoric, President Vladimir Putin denounced the United States and its allies as an ’empire of lies.’

Meanwhile, an embattled Ukraine moved to solidify its ties to the West by applying to join the European Union – a largely symbolic move for now, but one that won’t sit well with Putin, who has long accused the United States of trying to pull Ukraine out of Moscow’s orbit.

A top Putin aide and head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, said that during the first talks held between the sides since the invasion, the envoys ‘found certain points on which common positions could be foreseen.’ He said they agreed to continue the discussions in the days ahead.

As the talks along the Belarusian border wrapped up, several blasts could be heard in Kyiv, and Russian troops advanced on the city of nearly 3 million. The convoy of armored vehicles, tanks, artillery and support vehicles was 17 miles (25 kilometers) from the center of the city and stretched about 40 miles, according to satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies.

People in Kyiv lined up for groceries after the end of a weekend curfew, standing beneath a building with a gaping hole blown in its side. Kyiv remained ‘a key goal’ for the Russians, Zelenskyy said, noting that it was hit by three missile strikes on Monday and that hundreds of saboteurs were roaming the city.

‘They want to break our nationhood, that’s why the capital is constantly under threat,’ Zelenskyy said.

Messages aimed at the advancing Russian soldiers popped up on billboards, bus stops and electronic traffic signs across the capital. Some used profanity to encourage Russians to leave. Others appealed to their humanity.

‘Russian soldier – Stop! Remember your family. Go home with a clean conscience,’ one read.

Video from Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-biggest city, with a population of about 1.5 million, showed residential areas being shelled, with apartment buildings shaken by repeated, powerful blasts.

Authorities in Kharkiv said at least seven people had been killed and dozens injured. They warned that casualties could be far higher.

‘They wanted to have a blitzkrieg, but it failed, so they act this way,’ said 83-year-old Valentin Petrovich, who watched the shelling from his downtown apartment. He gave just his first name and his patronymic, a middle name derived from his father’s name, out of fear for his safety.

The Russian military has denied targeting residential areas despite abundant evidence of shelling of homes, schools and hospitals.

Fighting raged in other towns and cities. The strategic port city of Mariupol, on the Sea of Azov, is ‘hanging on,’ said Zelenskyy adviser Oleksiy Arestovich. An oil depot was reported bombed in the eastern city of Sumy.

Russian artillery hit a military base in Okhtyrka, a city between Kharkiv and Kyiv, and more than 70 Ukrainian soldiers were killed, the head of the region wrote on Telegram. Dmytro Zhyvytskyy posted photographs of the charred shell of a four-story building and rescuers searching rubble.

In a later Facebook post, he said many Russian soldiers and some local residents also were killed during the fighting on Sunday. The report could not immediately be confirmed.

Despite its superior military strength, Russia still lacked control of Ukrainian airspace. This may help explain how Ukraine has so far prevented a rout.

In the seaside resort town of Berdyansk, dozens of protesters chanted angrily in the main square against Russian occupiers, yelling at them to go home and singing the Ukrainian national anthem. They described the soldiers as exhausted young conscripts.

‘Frightened kids, frightened looks. They want to eat,’ Konstantin Maloletka, who runs a small shop, said by telephone. He said the soldiers went into a supermarket and grabbed canned meat, vodka and cigarettes.

‘They ate right in the store,’ he said. ‘It looked like they haven’t been fed in recent days.’

For many, Russia’s announcement of a nuclear high alert stirred fears that the West could be drawn into direct conflict with Russia. But a senior U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States had yet to see any appreciable change in Russia’s nuclear posture.

As far-reaching Western sanctions on Russian banks and other institutions took hold, the ruble plummeted, and Russia’s Central Bank scrambled to shore it up, as did Putin, signing a decree restricting foreign currency.

But that did little to calm Russian fears. In Moscow, people lined up to withdraw cash as the sanctions threatened to drive up prices and reduce the standard of living for millions of ordinary Russians.

In yet another blow to Russia’s economy, oil giant Shell said it was pulling out of the country because of the invasion. It announced it will withdraw from its joint ventures with state-owned gas company Gazprom and other entities and end its involvement in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project between Russia and Europe.

The economic sanctions, ordered by the U.S. and other allies, were just one contributor to Russia’s growing status as a pariah country.

Russian airliners are banned from European airspace, Russian media is restricted in some countries, and some high-tech products can no longer be exported to the country. On Monday, in a major blow to a soccer-mad nation, Russian teams were suspended from all international soccer.

In other developments:

– The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said he will open an investigation soon into possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine.

– Cyberattacks hit Ukrainian embassies around the world, and Russian media outlets.

– The United States announced it is expelling 12 members of Russia’s U.N. mission, accusing them of spying.

The U.N. human rights chief said at least 102 civilians have been killed and hundreds wounded – warning that figure is probably a vast undercount – and Ukraine’s president said at least 16 children were among the dead.

More than a half-million people have fled the country since the invasion, another U.N. official said, many of them going to Poland, Romania and Hungary.

Among the refugees in Hungary was Maria Pavlushko, 24, an information technology project manager from a city west of Kyiv. She said her father stayed behind to fight the Russians.

‘I am proud about him,’ she said, adding that many of her friends were planning to fight, too.