Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned of a ramped-up Russian offensive in his country’s east, with civilians rushing to flee the region ahead of what many fear could be a brutal new phase in the war.
In a nightly address Sunday, Zelenskyy said Moscow’s forces were expected to move to “even larger operations” in eastern Ukraine, but said his country’s troops were prepared to “respond.”
Satellite images captured by Maxar, a commercial firm that works with the U.S. government, appeared to show an 8-mile-long convoy of Russian military vehicles moving south toward the Donbas area that seems likely to be the focus of a major new offensive.
It comes as Russia has appointed a general with a record of brutality in Syria to take over its operations in Ukraine, a U.S. official and a Western official confirmed to NBC News. In Mariupol, the besieged southeastern port city, Zelenskyy said tens of thousands of people had likely been killed.
NBC News has not verified the numbers of people killed, but growing outrage at the evidence of Russian war crimes has left the Kremlin increasingly isolated.
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer is set to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Monday, following a meeting with Zelenskyy in Kyiv over the weekend.
