KRAKOW, Poland — Fresh off its victory over the last armed Ukrainian resistance in the devastated city of Mariupol, Russia on Thursday appeared to be laying the groundwork for the annexation of parts of southeastern Ukraine described by a senior Kremlin official as a ” worthy place” in our Russian family.”
The official, Marat Khusnullin, Russia’s deputy prime minister for infrastructure, toured the region this week, outlining plans to take full control of vital infrastructure, including Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, as Russia strengthened its defensive positions there and increased its authority. exercised over the local population.
“I have come here to provide maximum integration opportunities,” Mr Khusnullin said through Russian news media.
Another sign that Moscow was preparing to push for the Russification of the region — as it has done in Crimea since it was taken over from Ukraine in 2014 — Russian officials have already taken steps to adopt the ruble currency, proxy politicians in local governments, enforce new school curricula, reroute Internet servers through Russia and cut off the population from Ukrainian broadcasts.
Khusnullin said Russia even planned to charge Ukraine for electricity generated by the Ukrainian nuclear power plant claimed by Russian forces in the early weeks of the invasion — a plan Ukraine described as extortion.
Russia’s actions came as the United States attempted to further increase pressure on the Kremlin. President Biden pledged to help secure swift approval of applications to join NATO from formerly neutral Finland and Sweden as he welcomed those countries’ leaders to the White House and as US officials expressed confidence they could comply with Turkey’s objections to Finnish and Swedish membership. And the Senate overwhelmingly approved a $40 billion aid package for Ukraine that Mr Biden would sign into law.
Even as Russian authorities projected control over a Ukrainian region culturally close to Russia, President Vladimir V. Putin appeared to be punishing military subordinates for blunders in the three-month-old invasion.
A British Defense Intelligence Agency report suggested the Kremlin was purging senior commanders believed to be responsible for the failure of Russia’s initial strategy to capture much more Ukrainian territory, including the capital Kiev and the second-largest largest city of Kharkiv. The report raised the question of whether Mr Putin still had confidence in his chief of general staff, Valery Gerasimov.
The Russians have said nothing about any changes in military leadership.
Russia’s new, narrower strategy to focus on eastern Ukraine has proved more successful than its initially larger objectives, even as forces have retreated in the northeast and struggled to gain ground in the eastern Donbas region.
After the longest battle of the war, Russian soldiers completed their capture of Mariupol on Tuesday after taking control of the sprawling Azovstal steel plant, the last redoubt of Ukrainian defenders. More than 700 fighters from the Azov battalion, die-hards who had taken a firm stance against the Russians from the factory, surrendered between Wednesday and Thursday, according to Russia’s defense ministry, bringing the total number of detainees to 1,730.
The Kremlin has used the mass surrender for propaganda purposes, described its prisoners as terrorists and Nazi war criminals, and labeled the capture of Mariupol as a turning point in the conflict.
Although much of Mariupol has been destroyed, the capture of the port city is expected to bring concrete benefits to Russia. It will complete a long-sought land bridge between the Russian-controlled Crimean peninsula to the south and the neighboring region known as Donbas, where pro-Russian separatists have fought Ukrainian forces since the annexation of Crimea.
With Mariupol captured, Russian forces are now free to help bolster Russian authority over the rest of the eastern region — far behind Moscow’s initial attempt to control all of Ukraine, but strong leverage in future peace negotiations.
The fighting has come to a stalemate along most of the front.
Stiff Ukrainian resistance is forcing Russian troops to fight in smaller formations and seek narrower targets elsewhere in the Donbas region, a senior Pentagon official said Thursday.
“They are aiming for smaller targets,” the senior official said of the Russian targets, speaking on a condition of anonymity to discuss the operational details of US defense intelligence work. “And sometimes those goals are only enforced for a short period of time before the Ukrainians take them back. They’re just more humble in what they’re trying to pursue.”
The shift in Russian tactics reflects not only the resilient Ukrainian defense but also the nagging command, logistics and morale problems that continued to plague Russian commanders, especially in the hotly contested Donbas, the official said.
The southern region under Russian control covers a vast area that includes Ukraine’s agricultural core and several important ports. Along with Russia’s naval forces in the Black Sea, annexation would strengthen Moscow’s hold on Ukraine’s economy and strengthen the blockade of Ukraine’s southern coast.
In another possible sign of steps to entrench Russia’s control, its forces closed checkpoints on Thursday for civilians entering Russian-occupied and Ukrainian-controlled areas in two regions, Kherson and Zaporizhzhya, according to the Ukrainian military and local authorities.
At a checkpoint, near the town of Vasilyevka, a line of cars, mostly carrying women and children, stretched out to evacuate Russian-occupied areas. Ukrainian officials estimate that more than 1,000 cars were waiting at the crossing, said Zlata Nekrasova, the deputy governor of Ukraine’s regional government in Zaporizhzhya.
The Ukrainians have accused Russia of forcibly deporting thousands to Russia, and witnesses have described increasing repressive efforts to enforce Russian rule.
The Kremlin has sought to portray its actions as a reflection of the will of the people. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri S. Peskov seemed to downplay the significance of Mr Khusnullin’s statements suggesting annexation, saying only the locals could decide.
But in a move deemed by some analysts to reflect confusion within Russia’s leadership over how to secure the Ukrainian territories seized by Russia, a group of lawmakers on Thursday introduced a bill to the State Duma that Mr. Putin would be able to establish “temporary governments in areas where the Russian military conducts military operations.”
Mr Khusnullin said Russia will soon start charging Ukraine for electricity from the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, which Russia has been controlling since early March. When fully operational, the plant can produce enough energy for four million households.
Ukraine’s energy supplier NPC Ukrenergo, who called Khusnullin’s statement nuclear blackmail, said the real goal was to give Russia a dominant position over Ukraine and the rest of Europe. It noted that the plant was part of the Ukrainian power grid and was not equipped to supply power to Russia.
Moscow’s announcements were also part of a propaganda campaign aimed at transferring control over areas where Moscow’s grip is less firm. Military analysts have said Russian forces may still face Ukrainian uprisings and counter-offensive.
War between Russia and Ukraine: important developments
You said. The Senate overwhelmingly approved a $40 billion aid package for Ukraine, bringing total US investment in the war to $54 billion in just over two months. The move is the latest evidence of the bipartisan support on Capitol Hill for helping Ukraine fight Russia.
The Russian invasion in February, led by a rapid advance of tanks and helicopters, ultimately resulted in many Russian casualties, including some senior generals on the battlefield. The finger pointing has begun, Britain’s defense intelligence agency said in its report on Thursday.
It said the commander of the elite 1st Guards Tank Army, Lieutenant General Serhiy Kisel, had been suspended for failing to take Kharkiv, where Ukrainian forces not only counterattacked but drove the invaders back to the Russian border, 40 miles away.
The British agency also reported that the commander of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, Vice Admiral Igor Osipov, was likely suspended after the sinking in April of the fleet’s flagship cruiser Moskva. Asked about the report, a senior Pentagon went on to say that the commander had been fired.
General Gerasimov, Russia’s top uniformed officer, “will likely remain in office, but it is unclear whether he will retain confidence” of Mr Putin, the British report said.
But as a sign that General Gerasimov continued to maintain a good reputation, he telephoned General Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Thursday, the Pentagon said. It was their first call since the invasion.
In the port city of Kherson, in the south near the border with Crimea, Mr Khusnullin inspected infrastructure, including the port, a freight station and a factory.
“We will live and work together,” he said, adding that Russia had already allocated funds to repair roads in the city.
“Thanks to the work of Kherson’s agricultural producers, we will now be eating tomatoes and tomato paste more often,” said Mr Khusnullin, referring to Kherson’s long-standing role as a breadbasket and global exporter.
But as he spoke, Ukrainian officials said a convoy of civilian cars trying to flee the region came under fire from Russian soldiers. About half of the million people who have ever lived in the region have fled. Refugee witnesses tell harrowing stories about Russian repression.
In Kiev, a committee in the Ukrainian parliament accused Russia of robbing Kherson of 400,000 tons of grain, sending it to Russia and creating conditions that “could lead to famine in the occupied territories”.
A Russian naval blockade of Ukrainian ports prevents Ukraine from exporting millions more tons, putting tens of millions of people worldwide at risk of starvation and famine, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said at a UN food security conference on Thursday.
Marc Santora reported from Krakow, Poland, Ivan Nechepurenko from Tbilisi, Georgia, and Norimitsu Onishi from Paris. Reporting was contributed by Matthew Mpoke Bigg from Krakow, Eric Schmitt, Helene Cooper and David E. Sanger from Washington, Valerie Hopkins and Andrew E. Kramer from Kiev, Shashank Bengali from London, Anton Troianovski from Brussels and Rick Gladstone from New York.
