RUSSIA has given up on trying to take the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and is expected to mount a new attack in the east of the country, according to the former head of the British Army.
General Lord Richard Dannatt said the images of destruction and dead civilians caused by Russian military operations near Kyiv look like they are from another era.
He told GB News: “Some of the pictures that we’ve seen are really quite appalling, disgraceful, and frankly, just shouldn’t be there in the 21st century, and certainly not in Europe.
“As far as the overall situation is concerned, yes, as has been reported, over the last few days, the Russians have significantly withdrawn from the north of Kiev and are pulling back to Belarus.
“They’ve taken quite a pounding: well done to the Ukrainians who fought remarkably on that front.”
Speaking on To The Point with Patrick Christys and Mercy Muroki on GB News, Lord Dannatt said the Russians are likely to escalate their operations around Mariupol in the east of the country.
He said: “The town of Mariupol is still holding out and it is quite extraordinary that, after 42 days, and having been encircled for most of that time, Mariupol is still holding out – whether it will continue to do so, I think only time will tell.
“If Mariupol does fall, then the Russians will have achieved their objective of having a land corridor from Crimea through Mariupol to the Donbas region.
“It’s in the Donbas region, the two provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk, that we believe with a good intelligence basis, that the Russians will mount a new offensive to try and take those two provinces completely.
“If you remember before the war started Vladimir Putin declared that they were independent, part of them have been occupied by the Russians since 2014.
“Certainly it would look as if the minimum Russian objective now in this war is to control Donetsk and Luhansk completely and have that land corridor from Crimea through the Donbas. They’re pretty much giving up in the Kyiv area.”
