Russia Begins New Military Offensive in Ukraine’s East, Ukrainian President Says

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday that Russian forces have begun a fresh offensive in eastern Ukraine, signaling the latest phase of an invasion that has led to a new confrontation between Russia and the West.

 “Russian troops have started the battle for Donbas, which they had been preparing for a long time,” Mr. Zelensky said in an address late Monday. “A large portion of the army has been concentrated to carry out this offensive.”

President Zelensky didn’t point to any new movements in the east of the country, where Ukrainian forces had been fighting Russian-controlled separatists for eight years, and Pentagon officials were still cautious about calling a start to the new offensive. But Mr. Zelensky’s statement underscores how quickly the dynamics of the conflict are changing since Russia withdrew its troops from around Kyiv earlier this month, following a failed attempt to seize the capital.

President Biden is scheduled to hold a video call Tuesday morning with allies and partners to discuss Ukraine, the White House said.

Earlier in the day, Russian missile strikes on the western Ukrainian city of Lviv near Poland’s border shattered the calm of a place that had remained mostly unharmed in the war as Russia expanded its strikes across Ukraine.

President Zelensky has said that Russia has deployed more military forces and equipment in and around eastern Ukraine in recent days, setting the stage for a new phase of Moscow’s offensive. A combination of Russian military miscalculations and stronger-than-expected Ukrainian resistance helped Kyiv thwart Russia’s push on the capital and other parts of the country.

The number of Russian battalion tactical groups in Ukraine has grown to 76 from 65 a few days ago, a senior U.S. defense official said. Such battalion tactical groups generally number from 700 to 1,000 troops.

The Pentagon sees the Russian strikes in recent days as part of so—called “shaping operations,” which are intended by Russia to try to hamper the Ukrainians’s ability to resupply its combat forces before a major offensive in eastern Ukraine and soften up resistance in key towns in eastern Ukraine. It said the intended targets included ammunition depots or other hubs.

 “We still consider what we’re seeing to be a piece of shaping operations,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said when asked about various Ukrainian statements that war in the east has moved into a more active phase. “The Russians are continuing to set the conditions for what they believe will be eventual success on the ground by using, by putting in more forces, putting in more enablers, putting in more command and control capability for operations yet to come.

In the east, the heaviest fighting had been around Popasna and Donetsk, the senior U.S. defense official said. Fighting also continues around Izium, and the Russians are marshaling a substantial force north of the town.

As fighting intensifies, the U.S. and other members of the NATO alliance have scrambled to supply Ukraine with more military hardware.

The U.S. expects to move forward in the next few days on training Ukraine troops outside of Ukraine on using howitzers and new radar systems, including counter-battery radars to pinpoint the course of Russian artillery fire. The U.S. is sending 18 155 mm howitzers as part of a fresh infusion of weapons.

The strikes on Lviv came as Russian missiles and artillery hit hundreds of targets, leading to civilian deaths and destruction in several other Ukrainian towns and cities. Russia is ramping up military operations—including airstrikes and artillery—as part of a campaign to seize control over the eastern Donbas area.

Russian cruise missiles killed seven and injured 11 people in Lviv, including the child of a family that had fled to the safety of western Ukraine from Kharkiv, which had been under Russian assault since the early days of the conflict, said Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi. Three of the missiles hit military infrastructure and one missile struck a tire service shop, damaging nearby houses and vehicles, in the city about 40 miles from Poland’s border, regional authorities said.

 “These are the first civilian deaths in our city,” said Mr. Sadovyi. “We mourn the dead, but we must be as vigilant as possible.”

Ukrainian authorities also reported four civilian deaths in a Russian attack in the front-line city of Kreminna, in the Luhansk region of the Donbas, and said they had lost control of the city. Shelling in Kharkiv killed two civilians, the local prosecutors’ office said, with shells falling on playgrounds near residential buildings.

Ukrainian troops in the port city of Mariupol, meanwhile, continued to hold out a day after they rejected a Russian ultimatum to surrender. Russia has sought to capture the city to free up troops for its Donbas offensive and secure a land corridor from Russian-held territory in the east to the Crimean Peninsula.

The battle for Mariupol is hampering preparations for that offensive, according to the senior U.S. defense official and British intelligence. Once that city is taken, “almost a dozen” battalion tactical groups will be freed up for other operations elsewhere in eastern Ukraine, the official said.

The attack on Lviv was the deadliest in the city since the start of the war. Lviv is far from the war’s front lines and its relative safety has made it a common destination for Ukrainians fleeing the east. The missile attacks were a reminder that Russia’s long-range weapons remain a threat across much of the country at a time when some refugees are returning. Previous Russian strikes had killed people outside the city in the Yavoriv district, but these were the first to reach the city.

 “The Russians continue barbarically attacking Ukrainian cities from the air, cynically declaring to the whole world their ‘right’ to…kill Ukrainians,” Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to President Zelensky, said on Twitter.

The shock wave from the strikes shattered the windows of a nearby hotel that was housing Ukrainians evacuated from other regions, Mr. Sadovyi said.

Four civilians fleeing the war were killed in a Russian attack in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kreminna, according to Serhiy Haidai, governor of the Luhansk region, bordering Russia. He said that control over Kreminna was lost and street fights were under way.

In Kramatorsk, Ukraine, the site of an attack that killed more than 50 people at a train station earlier this month, authorities reported a missile strike that hit residential buildings and other infrastructure and disrupted electricity and gas supplies.

Civilian evacuations out of cities near the front lines, including Mariupol, were canceled Monday after Ukraine and Russia failed to agree on humanitarian corridors, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in a Facebook post. Ms. Vereshchuk said Russian forces were blocking and shelling humanitarian routes.

Mr. Zelensky has called for further peace negotiations to resolve the situation in Mariupol, much of which has been reduced to rubble, leaving most of the remaining residents without access to food, water and power.

The last Ukrainian troops in Mariupol are dug into positions at the Azovstal Iron and Steel works factory, where they have held out despite being largely surrounded and cut off from supply lines.

The Azov Battalion said it was continuing to fight, pinning down Russian soldiers. “Despite the overwhelming enemy forces, the Azov Regiment fighters are launching a counterattack,” the group said on Telegram.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that negotiations with Ukraine are continuing but that progress was slow. Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putinsaid peace talks with Kyiv had reached a dead end.

 “Contacts continue at the expert level within the framework of the negotiation process,” Mr. Peskov told reporters Monday. “The dynamics of the negotiation process leave much to be desired.”