Ukraine’s major cities have come under heavy bombardment, a senior Defense Department official said. About 90% of the 150,000 combat forces Putin deployed to Ukraine’s borders are now inside the country, said the official, who described military movements on condition of anonymity.
Heavily populated southern cities along the Black Sea and Sea of Azov were among primary targets as Russia’s campaign threatened to cut off shipping. Hennadiy Lahuta, governor of Kherson Oblast, said the government building in the Black Sea port city of Kherson, with a population of almost 280,000, was seized by Russian troops. Units were also bearing down on Mykolaiv, 40 miles to the northwest and home to almost half a million Ukrainians, The New York Times reported. U.S. officials said Russia had fired 480 missiles at Ukraine.
Russian forces failed to capture Mariupol, a city of 450,000 on the Azov Sea, and had “resorted to a blockade, creating a humanitarian disaster,” the Ukrainian military said. Food, water and even electricity have been cut off, women and children halted from evacuating. In the vital energy-producing southern city of Enerhodar, a hub on the Dnieper River, Ukrainian forces were battling Russian troops on the city’s outskirts, Mayor Dmytro Orlov said.
