Ukrainian officials on Tuesday, April 19, said a long-awaited Russian Federation (RF) offensive in the country’s eastern Donbas region has begun, with some claiming a chemical weapons strike may have taken place in the critical Izium sector.
Ukraine’s Army General Staff (AGS) in a Tuesday morning sitrep said the night Monday-Tuesday saw a strong increase in RF bombardments of Ukrainian defensive positions, homes, and businesses along the full length of the Donbas line of contact, with the heaviest fire striking and villages to the south of the town Izium.
Mykyta Karakai, a member of the Izium city council, in a Facebook statement said chemical weapons were, possibly, among the munitions used in RF bombardments of villages to the south of the city. Some persons surviving explosions in the vicinity suffered “reddened eyes, nausea, vomiting, breathing difficulty and loss of consciousness.” Medics had taken victim blood and clothing samples for analysis, he said.
Independent Ukrainian news media repeated Karakai’s statement, in most cases qualifying that the chemical weapons use report was not yet confirmed. On 11 April Ukraine Armed Forces (UAF) defenders of the city Mariupol claimed RF forces used a chemical or poison weapon against fighters and civilians. Symptoms were similar to those reported by Karakai.
Serhiy Haidai, head of the Luhansk regional defense command, in a Monday video statement said RF commanders had committed major forces to attacks against UAF positions near the towns Rubizhne, Popasna and Severodonetsk. RF forces captured the village Kremmine on the outskirts of Rubizhne, but otherwise UAF forces were holding he said.
Haidai said RF forces in these sectors by mid-morning Monday had suffered, in still ongoing fighting, “dozens” of casualties and “heavy” equipment losses. Over the previous 24 hours, according to AGS estimates, UAF units operating in Donbas destroyed ten tanks, eighteen infantry fighting vehicles, eight trucks, one artillery system and one mortar system with crew.
The RF’s main objectives with the offensive are full control of Ukraine’s Luhansk and Donetsk regions, encirclement and destruction of UAF forces fighting in the Popasna-Rubizhne sector, and capture of the city of Mariupol, the ACS estimate said.
Haidai repeated appeals to civilians living in towns and villages near the fighting to evacuate immediately. He said local authorities and volunteers were operating buses and automobiles to help people get away from the combat, and that a morning convoy transporting hospital patients and other persons unable to travel easily was planned.
Less than 20 percent of residents of towns like Popasna and Rubizhne, which have been fought over for weeks, still remain in their homes, Haidai said. Local authorities would very much like them to leave their homes voluntarily due to increasing danger, but, the Ukrainian government “evacuates its citizens, it does not deport them”.
A late Monday evening (Kyiv time) Pentagon statement estimated the RF currently has deployed 76 battalion tactical groups in Ukraine, a force on paper numbering as many as 50,000 men. International and Ukrainian military analysts believe many if not most of those units to be at half strength or less, due to heavy losses suffered in fighting in February and March.
