Ukraine Russia troops
© ReutersA refugee waits in a car as an APC carrying pro-Russian troops drives out of a checkpoint in the besieged port city of Mariupol, Ukraine on Thursday.
In a scaled-back formulation of its war goals, Russia said on Friday that the first phase of its military operation was mostly complete and it would focus on completely "liberating" Ukraine's breakaway eastern Donbas region.

The announcement appeared to indicate that Moscow may be switching to more limited objectives after running into fierce Ukrainian resistance in a month of war.


Comment: There's no evidence to suggest that the Ukrainian resistance has been particularly fierce; it has been dirty, using civilians as human shields, and it has desperately needed billions in lethal aid and funds from the West, as well as foreign fighters and mercenaries, but there's no sign that Russia has suffered any significant setbacks.


The defence ministry said Russian-backed separatists now controlled 93 per cent of Ukraine's Luhansk region and 54 per cent of the Donetsk region. They jointly make up the Donbas.

"The main objectives of the first stage of the operation have generally been accomplished," Sergei Rudskoi, head of the Russian General Staff's Main Operational Directorate, said in a speech.


"The combat potential of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has been considerably reduced, which ... makes it possible to focus our core efforts on achieving the main goal, the liberation of Donbas."

A senior diplomatic source in Moscow described it as a face-saving move and possible prelude to a climbdown by Russia. Its forces have become bogged down and failed to take any major city since invading Ukraine from the north, east and south on February 24.


Comment: Russia has Ukraine surrounded from all but one side, and, whilst rescuing civilians through humanitarian corridors, it's closing in on Ukraine's neo-Nazi aligned military, that sounds like solid progress.


"Their war aims are/were much wider than Donbas, leaving their force divided with poorly coordinated attacks on multiple fronts by unprepared troops," the source said.

"I'd anticipated the possibility of a refocusing of effort back on Donbas, but while Putin rhetoric remains maximalist we need to see more evidence on the ground."


Comment: What we need to see is from this anonymous diplomatic source. Because it's sounds like this person has no idea just what Russia's strategy is.


President Vladimir Putin says Russian forces are on a special operation to demilitarise and "denazify" Ukraine.

The West and Kyiv call that a false pretext to invade a democracy, saying his true goal was to topple the government.

Russia has also said it will insist that Ukraine accept the loss of Crimea, which Russia seized in 2014, and recognise as independent the Donbas, where Russian-backed separatists have been fighting the Ukrainian army for the past eight years.

Ukraine says it is willing to negotiate an end to the war but will not surrender or bow to ultimatums.


Rudskoi said Russia's military had considered confining its operation just to Donbas but opted for extending across Ukraine to damage its military infrastructure and tie down forces so as to prevent them reinforcing the east.


Comment: Russia took out the majority of Ukraine's military facilities in the first week - including the particularly sinister US-funded biowarfare laboratories - and it is near to achieving its objective in the Donbas.


Russia did not rule out storming cities, he said, but as its military completed tasks "our forces and resources will be concentrated on the main thing - the complete liberation of Donbas."

Rudskoi said 1,351 Russian soldiers had died in the operation and 3,825 been injured. Ukraine's military has said some 15,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in combat.