離開
進入《TAIPEI TIMES》 Moscow scales back goals in Ukraine
From left, Sergei Rudskoi, a senior representative of the Russian General Staff, Russian Ministry of Defense spokesman Igor Konashenkov and Russian National Defense Control Center head Mikhail Mizintsev attend a briefing in Moscow on Friday. Photo: AFP
/ Reuters, MARIUPOL and LVIV, Ukraine
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy pushed for further talks with Russia as Moscow signaled it was scaling back its ambitions to focus on territory claimed by separatists in the east after attacks elsewhere stalled.
In an announcement on Friday appearing to indicate more limited goals, the Russian Ministry of Defense said that a first phase of its operation was mostly complete and it would focus on the Donbas region bordering Russia, which has pro-Moscow separatist enclaves.
“The combat potential of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has been considerably reduced, which ... makes it possible to focus our core efforts on achieving the main goal, the liberation of Donbas,” said Sergei Rudskoi, head of the Russian General Staff’s Main Operational Directorate.
Breakaway Russian-backed forces have been fighting Ukrainian forces in Donbas and the adjoining Luhansk region since 2014.
They declared independence with Moscow’s blessing — but are not recognized by the West — just before the Feb. 24 invasion.
Reframing Russia’s goals might make it easier for President Vladimir Putin to claim a face-saving victory, military analysts said.
Moscow had said the goals for what it calls its “special operation” include demilitarizing and “de-Nazifying” its neighbor.
Western officials say that the invasion is unjustified and illegal, aimed at toppling Zelenskiy’s pro-NATO government.
Weeks of on-and-off peace talks have failed to make significant progress.
In a video address on Friday, Zelenskiy said that his troops’ resistance had dealt Russia “powerful blows.”
“Our defenders are leading the Russian leadership to a simple and logical idea: We must talk, talk meaningfully, urgently and fairly,” Zelenskiy said.
In what officials billed as a major address in Poland yesterday, US President Joe Biden was to “deliver remarks on the united efforts of the free world to support the people of Ukraine, hold Russia accountable for its brutal war and defend a future that is rooted in democratic principles,” the White House said in a statement.
Russian troops have failed to capture and hold any major city in the month since invading Ukraine.
Instead, they have bombarded cities, laid waste to urban areas and driven one-quarter of Ukraine’s 44 million people from their homes.
More than 3.7 million of them have fled abroad, half to Poland in the west, where Biden on Friday met soldiers from the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division bolstering the NATO alliance’s eastern flank.
“Hundreds of thousands of people are being cut off from help by Russian forces and are besieged in places like Mariupol,” Biden said. “It’s like something out of a science fiction movie.”
新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES
From right, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, US President Joe Biden and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken attend a meeting with, from left, Ukrainian Minister of Defense Oleksii Reznikov and Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba at the Marriott Hotel in Warsaw yesterday. Photo: Reuters
