Russia will begin a new tactic of “intense” mass bombardment against Ukraine’s city’s and strongholds that could last for weeks, western military officials have predicted.
Hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds are being stockpiled by Russian troops before a major barrage that Moscow’s commanders hope will bomb Ukraine into submission.
Officials also raised fears over the potential encirclement of up to 40,000 of Ukraine’s best trained troops who are fighting the separatists in the eastern Donbas region.
Following a severe mauling as they attempted to swiftly overpower Ukraine, the Russians are now expected to revert to a more methodical and deadly war of attrition, said Lt Gen Sir Jim Hockenhull
“Russian operations have changed. Russia is now pursuing a strategy of attrition,” the chief of Defence Intelligence told a media briefing.
“This will involve the reckless and indiscriminate use of firepower. This will result in increased civilian casualties, destruction of Ukrainian infrastructure and intensify the humanitarian crisis.”
The Russian air force is also now using less accurate “dumb munitions” that have a far higher risk of causing significant civilian casualties.
But it is the howitzers of its artillery — what the Russian military calls the “God of War” — that has been brought up to break Ukraine’s forces and will to fight.
“There is an enormous amount of artillery ammunition which the Russian forces hold and it may be a logistical challenge for them to get all of it in place but if they're able to bring those supplies, then they could mount an artillery bombardment for a very, very considerable period of time,” a western security official said.
The ferocity of Ukraine’s resistance over three weeks of war and the high casualties — with perhaps more than 7,000 Russian dead — has forced the invaders to change their approach and regroup. Moscow’s approach would be slow but would now be “uniformly slow”.
Asked how long the artillery bombardment could last, the western official said it could “go into weeks”.
“Depending on the intensity, if they wish to use the ammunition supplies, it could be stretched out for a longer period of time,” he said. “But those bombardments could be very intense.
“The scale of the artillery assets that have been made available to the forces are really, really considerable. There's an awful lot of artillery in reserve across Russia.”
The source also confirmed that not only had four Russian generals now been killed in the conflict — 20 per cent of officers of that rank in Ukraine — but that other senior commanders had also died on the front line.
“This scale of officers being killed, not just generals but commanders of regiments, is highly unusual,” the official said. “This is something which demonstrates the way in which the Russian assault has stalled in so many areas.”
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A woman cries near a building damaged by shelling in Kyiv as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues. EPA -
A satellite photo from Planet Labs PBC shows the damage from a Russian strike on Lviv's international airport. AP -
Destroyed cars hit by shelling in Kyiv. EPA -
A woman stands in her home after her building was damaged by shelling in Kyiv. EPA -
A pedestrian looks at a cloud of smoke rising after an explosion in Lviv. AP -
General view of a street behind a barricade in the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa. EPA -
The UN Security Council meets on threats to international peace and security in New York. AFP -
US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin speaks with US troops at an army training range in Bulgaria. AP -
Empty strollers are seen outside the Lviv city council building during an action to highlight the number of children killed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. AFP -
Children play on the stage of the theatre of the Ukrainian House where a shelter for refugees has been installed in Przemysl, south-eastern Poland. AFP -
Smoke is seen above buildings close to the airport in Lviv, Ukraine. Lviv's mayor said the airport was not hit, but an area nearby. Getty Images -
Ukrainian firefighters try to extinguish a blaze at a warehouse after a bombing in Kyiv. AP Photo -
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy presents flowers to Kateryna Vlasenko, 16 - who was injured as she fled with her family from the town of Vorzel - at a hospital in Kyiv. Reuters -
Igor, a 40 year-old Ukranian soldier, embraces his wife in front of his military basement in the centre of Odesa. AFP -
Ukrainian refugees arrive at the reception centre near Palanca Village, about 3 kilometres from the Moldova-Ukraine border. EPA -
Broken windows after parts of a Russian missile, shot down by Ukrainian air defences, hit an apartment block in Kyiv. AP -
People clear debris outside a medical centre damaged by the same Russian missile after it was intercepted. AP -
A police officer looks through the window of a damaged flat in Kyiv. One person was killed and three injured when debris from a downed rocket hit an apartment in the Ukrainian capital. AFP -
Firemen working in the rubble after extensive damage in Kyiv. AFP -
Family members and comrades of Ivan Skrypny, who was killed in a rocket attack on a military base in Yavoriv, pay their last respects at his memorial service in Lviv, Ukraine. Reuters -
A man feels the despair as his home was hit by debris from a downed rocket in Kyiv. Russian troops trying to encircle the capital have launched early morning strikes on the city for several successive days. AFP -
UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed shakes hands with Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during a news conference following their talks in Moscow. Reuters -
The Donetsk Regional Theatre of Drama, which was destroyed by an air strike during Russia's military onslaught in Mariupol, Ukraine. Reuters -
A satellite image of the theatre before the bombing, with the word 'children' written in Russian in large white letters on the pavement in front of and behind the building. Reuters -
A Ukrainian woman and her family in a taxi displaying the colours of the Ukrainian flag upon arriving in Madrid with a group of Spanish taxi drivers who drove to Poland to support the mass evacuation of refugees. Reuters -
A sanitised train arrives in Kielce, Poland, carrying children with oncological diseases who fled Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Reuters -
A man outside a damaged housing block after it was hit by debris from a downed rocket in Kyiv. AFP -
A residential building damaged by a blast wave at the scene where debris from a downed rocket hit a nearby apartment block in Kyiv. AFP -
Evacuees from Mariupol are seen upon arrival at the car park of a shopping centre on the outskirts of the city of Zaporizhzhia, which is now a registration centre for displaced people. AFP -
Legislators applaud Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine's president, after an address via video link at the Bundestag in Berlin. Bloomberg
Referring to the potential encirclement of Ukraine’s troops in the area known as the JFO — Joint Forces Operation — the official said this was a major worry for commanders, with Russian forces from Kharkiv in the north and those in the south potentially moving to surround them.
“That's probably the area that battlefield where we've got the greatest concern that Russian forces may be able to move towards achieving some of their initial objectives,” the official added.
“There's a vulnerability for those forces to encirclement but it's clear that Ukrainian forces have fought pretty smartly across the battle space and we expect them to anticipate those manoeuvres by Russian forces.”
