Russian renewed bombardment of eastern Ukraine heats up

Russia’s latest offensive in the eastern Donbas region has begun, a senior Ukrainian official said Monday, warning that Russia continues to amass forces there.

Vadym Denysenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said in remarks on national television, “From my point of view, this big offensive (in eastern Ukraine) has already started.”

“We have to understand it’s not going to be the repetition of Feb. 24, when the first airstrikes and explosions started and we said, ‘The war has begun.’ The big offensive de-facto has already started.”

Ukrainian and Western officials have said in recent days they have observed movement of Russian troops to Donbas following major setbacks for Moscow in a push to take Kyiv.

“Russians are accumulating their forces,” Denysenko said. “They continue to redeploy their troops and equipment to Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

“Yes, there are still no major battles that are being discussed so much in the past few days. But in general we could say the offensive has already started.”

Denysenko noted explosions overnight in the Dnipropetrovsk region and said the shelling of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, had also continued.

Serhii Haidai, head of Ukraine’s Luhansk regional military administration, said Ukrainian authorities were organizing an “enhanced evacuation” in the Donbas, adding more evacuation trains from Luhansk and Donetsk are scheduled for April 11.