As the Russian war on Ukraine enters its twelfth day, Russian forces have tightened their encirclement of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, in preparation for an assault. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry warned that Russian troops are advancing from the direction of the city of Sumy, east of Kyiv, while the Russian Defense Ministry reported the destruction of 2,200 military targets since the operation began in Ukraine.
Russian news agency Interfax quoted the Russian Defense Ministry as stating that the Russian army will cease fire and open humanitarian corridors in several Ukrainian cities, including the capital Kyiv, starting Monday. Additionally, corridors will also be opened from the cities of Kharkiv, Mariupol, and Sumy, at the personal request of French President Emmanuel Macron, given the current situation in these cities.
In recent hours, Russian airstrikes targeted sites in the city of Odesa on the Black Sea coast, according to Ukrainian news agency reports. Meanwhile, Russian news agency TASS stated that Ukrainian forces shelled Luhansk with Grad rockets. The Ukrainian army also targeted a Russian artillery position near the city of Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine, according to CNN, from a video posted by the city's mayor showing the destruction of Russian artillery vehicles after being hit by Ukrainian forces, as he claimed.
On Sunday night, the Ukrainian army announced that it had taken control of the town of Chuhuiv in the city of Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine. An American defense official revealed that Russia has launched six hundred missiles since the beginning of the war in Ukraine and has utilized ninety-five percent of its military forces there, ruling out an attack from the sea via Odesa, Ukraine's third-largest city.
In this context, British defense intelligence reported that Russian forces made only slight territorial gains in Ukraine over the weekend and doubted that Russia has achieved its objectives thus far. The Ukrainian battlefield witnessed rapid developments in the past few hours, especially on Sunday night, with Russian forces beginning to marshal resources to storm Kyiv, according to the Ukrainian General Staff, which added that supplies are reaching Russian forces from Belarus via Chernobyl.
A Ukrainian official confirmed that intense Russian shelling targeted cities in the central, northern, and southern parts of the country. Ukraine reported that radio and television broadcasting ceased after a television tower in Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine was targeted. A video captured the Russian shelling of the mentioned tower.
Russian shelling also targeted the regional prosecutor's office and the Azerbaijani embassy in the city. The city of Irpin, located in the suburbs of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, witnessed fierce clashes between Russian and Ukrainian forces, accompanied by heavy Russian shelling.
Furthermore, the mayor of Lviv in western Ukraine warned that the Russian president seeks to annex his country, which represents a significant part of Europe, by taking control of the city of Lviv, which contains government institutions and diplomatic missions.
Oleksey Danilov, the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, stated that Russia is consolidating its military forces to encircle the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, explaining that Russia is focusing on isolating Ukraine from the Black Sea. Concurrently, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky criticized the allies again, accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of plotting deliberate killings in Ukrainian cities.
