Ukraine announced on Monday the launch of a Russian offensive in the eastern Donbass region, while fighting continued in the besieged port city of Mariupol (southeast), Moscow said that its forces bombed Western weapons supplies received by Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced this evening that the Russian forces had begun the Battle of Donbass, which they had been preparing for a long time.

A little earlier, the Ukrainian National Security Council confirmed that the active phase of the Russian offensive in the east of the country began along the front line.

And the Ukrainian General Staff said today - in a statement - that the Russian army has completed assembling its forces to launch an attack on the east of the country, noting that it is intensifying its attacks in the Donetsk and Slobozansky regions of the Donbass region.

She added that Russia's main military power is focused on controlling the entire Donetsk and Lugansk regions in the Donbass.

To the north on the Donbass border, the Ukrainian General Staff reported that the Russian army was partially besieging the city of Kharkiv and destroying its residential areas with artillery fire.

In Washington, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said that they believe that the Russians are still preparing the conditions for the next offensive operation in the Donbass region.

Kirby added that the Russians are now concentrating their capabilities in a smaller geographic area in the Donbass and the south.

He added that the Russian forces incurred human losses and lost heavy and light military equipment, and are trying to overcome some logistical obstacles and support their internal lines, noting that the Russians tried to recruit fighters from Syria.

Earlier today, a senior US military official confirmed that Russia had sent reinforcements to eastern Ukraine to renew its offensive operations.

The US official indicated that there are about 76 Russian tactical battalions in southern and eastern Ukraine currently, an increase of about 11 battalions in recent days.

The news of the start of a new Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine after the withdrawal of forces from the vicinity of Kyiv and other areas in the north of the country came in parallel with the continuation of battles in the city of Mariupol and in other axes around the cities of Kharkiv and Kherson, not far from the Donbass region.

A Ukrainian woman cries for her father, who was killed in a Russian bombing of the city of Kharkiv (Reuters)

weapons shipments

In a new development in the war that Russia is waging against Ukraine for the 54th day, the Russian Defense Ministry spoke today about the destruction of a logistics center in the city of Lviv (west) and large shipments of Western weapons that arrived last week.

The ministry said that Russian missiles destroyed a logistics center in the city of Lviv containing weapons that arrived in Ukraine from Europe and the United States.

The Ukrainian authorities had announced the killing of 7 people in a Russian missile attack on the city of Lviv, also referring to the bombing of the town of Vasylkiv (southwest of the capital, Kyiv).

It also confirmed that 13 people were killed in a similar bombing of residential areas in the Kharkiv Governorate (east).

Earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry said that its forces launched intensive strikes on the Ukrainian army, and on targets belonging to it, using air forces, artillery and air defense systems.

The ministry spoke of the destruction of 16 Ukrainian military facilities, including 5 command posts and 3 ammunition depots. The strikes hit the regions of Kharkiv, Zaporozhye, Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk, and in the southern coastal city of Mykolaiv.

The Russian Defense Ministry also said that its forces bombed two Ukrainian fighters and a Su-25 attack aircraft, downed more than 10 marches, and destroyed 4 warehouses of weapons and military equipment with missile strikes in Popasnia, Yampol and Kramatorsk in the Donbass region.

On the other hand, the Ukrainian forces confirmed that their air defenses had shot down a Russian combat aircraft, a drone, and 3 helicopters during the past 24 hours.

In the midst of the continuous shelling and battles on several fronts, the Ukrainian News Agency said that the commander of the 49th Air Defense Division in the Russian army, Colonel Ivan Gration, was killed during the ongoing battles in Ukraine.


Mariupol mode

In the field developments as well, the Ukrainian General Staff stated that the battles are still continuing in the coastal city of Mariupol, noting that the Russian forces are trying to storm the city's sea port.

Moscow had said that its forces, backed by separatists loyal to it, had taken control of most of the city of Mariupol, noting that the fighting was confined to the industrial area where Ukrainian forces are holed up.

For his part, a senior US defense official said today, Monday, that the coastal Mariupol is still a dispute between Ukrainian and Russian forces.

While Mariupol Mayor Vadim Boychenko confirmed that more than 100,000 people are still trapped in the city, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshukin appealed to Russia's political and military leadership to open a humanitarian corridor from Mariupol to Berdyansk.

The city's mayor's advisor, Petro Andryushenko, said that the fighting in the area of ​​the left bank of the Kalimos River continued throughout the day, and that the Russians continued to bombard the Azovstal factory (east of the city) with all kinds of weapons.

Concerning the humanitarian situation, Andryushenko said that the number of civilian deaths amounted to about 22,000, and it may witness an increase, especially since the city has no doctors left, which worsens the humanitarian situation.

In New York, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths said today that he has not yet received any response from the Russians regarding his proposals to evacuate citizens from Mariupol.

The British Ministry of Defense said that Russian leaders will be concerned about the time taken to control the city of Mariupol, adding that the coordinated Ukrainian resistance has severely tested Russian forces, diverting the path of soldiers and mechanisms, which has slowed the Russian advance elsewhere in Ukraine.

The Azov battalion of the Ukrainian army broadcast pictures that it said were of an attack carried out by soldiers from the battalion against Russian soldiers in the city of Mariupol, without mentioning the date of this attack.

Also in Mariupol, Donetsk separatist forces said that they had killed and wounded about 150 Ukrainian soldiers in artillery shelling targeting a convoy of Ukrainian forces, which was heading from the seaport to the Azov Staal plant.

Zelensky presents the head of the European Union delegation with answers to the questionnaire on possible membership (Anatolia)

Ukraine Membership

In another matter, the Ukrainian President's Office said that President Volodymyr Zelensky today handed the head of the European Union delegation to Ukraine answers to a questionnaire from the Union, which is the first step towards obtaining the status of a candidate for membership in the Union.

He added that Zelensky assured the European Union delegation that the Ukrainian people are united in order to achieve their goal, which is to become a part with equal rights in Europe.

In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused Ukraine of changing its position on what is agreed upon during the negotiations.

Peskov said that the dynamics of progress in the negotiations between the two parties are not going well.

He added that the Russian military operation in Ukraine is going according to plan, but the direction in the peace talks could be better than it is now, as he put it.

With regard to paying for Russian gas in rubles, a spokesman for the Russian presidency expected the process to start next May.


Sanctions on Russia

With regard to sanctions against Russia, the US State Department said today that the United States is working with about 30 countries to coordinate on the unprecedented measures it has taken to pressure Russia.

The ministry added that Russia's honoring of the military commander responsible for the mass killings in the town of Bucha near Kyiv is evidence that what happened was not spontaneous.

In Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed that all Western attempts to destabilize Russia's economic and financial situation through sanctions had failed, and he spoke about the stability of the ruble and inflation.

Putin said at a government meeting that Western countries had harmed themselves when they imposed sanctions on his country, as he put it.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said that he stressed - during his conversation with his Maltese counterpart - the need for the sixth EU sanctions package to include an oil embargo on Russia.


British prisoner

In a separate development, Russian media broadcast an interview that it said was of a British prisoner arrested during the battles in the city of Mariupol.

During the interview, the captive demanded that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson work to reach a deal with the Russian side to exchange him for the Ukrainian opposition politician Viktor Medvedchuk.

On the other hand, the Ukrainian State Security broadcast a video clip of the Ukrainian opposition politician, Viktor Medvedchuk, in which he calls on the Russian President and the Ukrainian President to exchange him for the Ukrainian prisoners in Mariupol, indicating that they are in a prohibited city that cannot be safely reached through humanitarian corridors.

It is noteworthy that Russia has launched since February 24, what it describes as a special military operation to disarm Ukraine and eliminate what it describes as "Nazi nationalists."