Russia declares new phase of war on Ukraine: What to expect?

Having failed to capture Kyiv and other significant areas, Russia is focused on attacking eastern towns and cities

For Vladimir Putin, Russia’s increasingly spurned president, most of April has looked like a string of disappointments.

Moscow completely withdrew its forces from four Ukrainian regions – Mykolaiv in the south, and Kyiv, Sumy and Chernihiv in the north, Qazet.az reports.

The northern contingent temporarily retreated to neighbouring Belarus.

Hundreds of bodies of civilians, most of them deliberately gunshot, were exhumed in Kyiv suburbs, triggering worldwide condemnation and a new set of sanctions comparable to measures imposed on Iran or North Korea.

And Moscow lost Moskva, its largest warship in the Black Sea, and Ukrainians cheered about how prophetic was its sailor’s phrase: “Russian warship, go … yourself!”. Moskva had an advanced S-300 air defence system on board, and its loss complicates Russia’s chances to land paratroopers in Ukraine’s largest seaport of Odesa.

Meanwhile, after weeks of pummelling that has reportedly killed thousands of civilians, the southern port of Mariupol has not fallen because the remaining Ukrainian fighters refused to surrender – even though Russia may have used chemical weapons against them.

Even in the southeastern region of Donbas, whose parts pro-Moscow separatists controlled since 2014, Russia’s advance was glacial and paved with heavy losses.