What Happened on Day 56 of the War in Ukraine – The New York Times
With a pointed warning to Ukraine’s Western allies, Russia test-launched a new intercontinental missile on Wednesday, even as it unleashed a hail of bombs, artillery and missiles inside Ukraine in a drive to weaken Ukrainian defenses for a major ground offensive in the east.
The intensifying barrage, aimed at more than 1,100 targets, came as the Russian military made probing attacks along a 300-mile front line winding through Ukraine’s southeastern Donbas region, which the Kremlin h…….
With a pointed warning to Ukraine’s Western allies, Russia test-launched a new intercontinental missile on Wednesday, even as it unleashed a hail of bombs, artillery and missiles inside Ukraine in a drive to weaken Ukrainian defenses for a major ground offensive in the east.
The intensifying barrage, aimed at more than 1,100 targets, came as the Russian military made probing attacks along a 300-mile front line winding through Ukraine’s southeastern Donbas region, which the Kremlin has said will be the focus of the next phase of its war, and continued to build up and prepare a massive force there.
The new Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile “will force all who are trying to threaten our country in the heat of frenzied, aggressive rhetoric to think twice,” President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said in televised remarks, a clear reference to the United States and other nations that have aided Ukraine in the face of Russia’s eight-week-old invasion.
It is not yet clear if the missile, which Russia’s Defense Ministry said could carry multiple nuclear warheads and outwit defenses anywhere in the world, actually possesses game-changing capabilities. The ministry also acknowledged the missile is not yet ready for active deployment, and the United States said it had not been surprised by the launch.
But the test-firing and Mr. Putin’s comments fit neatly into a relentless Kremlin propaganda campaign — the only information many of his people ever see — presenting Russians not as aggressors but as victims of Western persecution, yet still powerful and unbowed.
In a televised appearance with a group of school children at the Kremlin, Mr. Putin repeated his lie that Ukraine was committing genocide against Russian speakers in Donbas, which had “forced, simply compelled Russia to start this military operation.”
Credit…Russian Defense Ministry
The rising death and destruction in Donbas, along with a critical scarcity of basic supplies and services, have been driving an exodus of staggering proportions in Ukraine, a country with a prewar population estimated at 43 million. The United Nations said the number of people who have left the country reached 5 million, in addition to more than 7 million who have fled or been forced from their homes but remain within Ukraine.
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Source: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/04/20/world/ukraine-russia-war-donbas
