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Russian state media, citing Russian defense officials, said its troops controlled Kherson, a vital port in southern Ukraine where the Dnieper River meets the Black Sea. While Kherson’s mayor confirmed that Russian tanks and troops were in the city, he said it was still in Ukrainian hands as he issued a public appeal for a humanitarian corridor to evacuate the wounded and the dead. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense said Wednesday via WhatsApp that battles are going on now and “the city is not captured totally.”
The Russian assault on Kherson is part of an effort to set the stage for an advance toward Odessa, a major prize on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast. But “Russian operations in the south do not appear to pose an imminent danger to Odessa within the next 24 hours,” according to an assessment by the Institute for the Study of War published Tuesday.
Seven days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Moscow’s offensive, beset by logistical challenges as well as a fierce Ukrainian response, has not advanced as quickly as some had predicted, leaving major Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv, the capital, in the hands of its government. But the battlefield picture was fluid Wednesday. Russia continued to shift toward what human rights groups have warned are deadly siege tactics that Moscow has used in other war zones, including Syria, and as Ukrainian officials said they had begun to receive shipments of promised weapons from allied countries that might stymie Russia’s plans.
The United Nations has recorded the deaths of more than 130 civilians, including 13 children, since the beginning of the fighting last week, mostly because of shelling and rocket fire. The actual toll is probably far higher, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said.
The flow of weaponry to Ukraine increased this week when Germany opened its stockpiles and Australia said it would provide Kyiv with around $70 million in “lethal military assistance,” including missiles and unspecified weapons. On Wednesday, Ukraine announced that it had received a shipment of Turkish drones, which is it has used in recent days to damage advancing Russian armored columns. Turkey, which is trying to maintain stable relations with both Russia and Ukraine, did not comment on the shipment.
Ukrainian officials across the country reported an intensifying Russian barrage, including against civilian areas. In Mariupol, in southern Ukraine, the city council accused Russia of shelling houses, hospitals and a hostel for migrants. The city — a strategic location that could allow Russia to create a land bridge from southern Russia, through Ukraine, to Crimea, which Moscow controls — was still under Ukrainian control Wednesday, the city council said.
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, endured another night of airstrikes, with social media videos, which could not be immediately verified, purporting to show explosions at the regional police headquarters and in residential areas. Russian paratroopers had landed and engaged Ukrainians in a firefight at a medical center, a local official said.
A long column of Russian troops and tanks north of Kyiv, stretching for dozens of miles, remained frozen and sat “days, not hours” behind schedule as Russia switched to siege tactics, said British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace. Speaking in television interviews Wednesday morning, Wallace said that the approaching convoy had been hit by logistical supply chain challenges, low morale and Ukrainian resistance.
“When any army on the move takes longer to do things, your logistical supply chain is stretched. If you’re given enough rations for two days and it takes you six you’ve suddenly got a problem. And I think what we’ve seen is a lot of those issues are coming to bear,” he told Sky News. The Ukrainians, he said, have also been “carrying out a very clever plan. We’ve seen footage, we can’t verify, but we’ve seen footage of Ukrainians using UAVs to attack petrol train convoys, to go after logistical lines, we’ve seen lines blown up, all the things you and I think of when it comes to resistance.”
Others said it was too soon to say how long the Russian ground offensive would be delayed.
Russian forces “are receiving needed supplies and reinforcements that may facilitate much more rapid and effective operations in the coming 24-72 hours,” the Institute for the Study of War assessment said. The Russian effort around Kyiv, it added, “remains poorly organized, however, with elements of many different battalions combined into what seem to be ad hoc groupings rather than operating under standing regiment or brigade headquarters.
“Russian logistical and operational failures around Kyiv will be difficult to remedy quickly and will likely continue to cause friction and reduce the effectiveness of Russian operations even as supply issues are addressed and reinforcements come into the fight. It remains too early to evaluate the likely effective combat power the added Russian troops will bring.”
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