LVIV, Ukraine — As battered, sun-starved Ukrainians trickled out from the ruins of the port city of Mariupol, Russian forces Monday pressed new bombing runs in the east and south of the country and U.S. officials warned that Moscow will attempt to annex larger chunks of territory it occupies.
How many Ukrainians were finally allowed to escape a city devastated by steady Russian artillery was not immediately clear. Officials said that in a number of evacuations, Russian forces have rerouted people to Russian-held territory against their will.
Families that did reach the Ukrainian-held city of Zaporizhzhia under the auspices of the United Nations told of harrowing trips filled with dread — after two months of struggling to survive in the darkened tunnels beneath Mariupol’s steel plant. Hundreds of wounded Ukrainian soldiers and more civilians remain holed up there, the last Ukrainian redoubt as most of the city has fallen to Russia.
A senior Pentagon official, meanwhile, said Russia’s offensive to take the Donbas region in the east continues to be “uneven and incremental and even anemic in many places.” He said Russian forces were zeroing in on the northern city of Kharkiv, which sits on the northwestern edge of the Donbas.
U.S. officials believe Russia plans to annex the Donetsk and Luhansk breakaway regions in the Donbas, which President Vladimir Putin has declared to be independent republics, and then do the same with the Kherson region in the south near the port city of Odesa, creating a Kherson People’s Republic. Those moves would follow the steps taken by Putin after he occupied Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014.
“We have to act urgently,” Michael Carpenter, the U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, told reporters in Washington. He said the illegal annexations could happen as early as mid-May through a series of staged “sham referenda” made to look as if residents were voting for the measure, as Russian authorities would impose puppet local officials, Russian-language school curriculum and even the use of rubles.
Russia’s strategy includes a “plan for a forced capitulation of Ukraine’s democratically elected government, as well as dissolution of local government structures,” Carpenter said.
Monday’s developments came as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrapped up an unannounced weekend visit to Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and a meeting with the president of Poland, where she thanked him and his country for taking in the lion’s share of the more than 5.5 million Ukrainians who have fled their country since the war there began.
Pelosi issued a statement expressing “America’s deep gratitude to the Polish government and Polish people.” Polish President Andrzej Duda, in brief public remarks, called the war a “crucial” time for his country.
The White House said Monday that First Lady Jill Biden would travel to Slovakia and Romania over the coming weekend to meet U.S. military service members as well as government and humanitarian workers dealing with an influx of refugees.
In his nightly video address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said slightly more than 100 Mariupol civilians who were evacuated Sunday were on their way to Zaporizhzhia. New evacuations were planned for Tuesday.
He described evacuation corridors as one of the few areas of progress in off-and-on talks between Russia and Ukraine. He said about 350,000 people had been given safe passage from battle zones over the last months.
At the same time, there was a report of new attacks on Mariupol, a once-thriving cosmopolitan city that dwindling food supplies and reported mass graves have turned into a symbol of the war’s brutality.
“The fighting in Mariupol is not done,” said Pentagon spokesman John Kirby. He noted, however, that Russia appears to be moving battle units from Mariupol farther east into the Donbas — suggesting it is highly confident in its hold on the port.
A mayoral aide, Petro Andryushchenko, said Monday that Mariupol’s Azovstal steel plant was hit with shelling Sunday even as evacuations overseen by the U.N. and the International Red Cross were taking place.
