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Slow Progress and Fierce Resistance in Ukraine Could Prompt Brutal Russian Offensive - The Moscow Times
Five days into its invasion of Ukraine, Russia appears to be shifting its tactics in response to unexpectedly ferocious Ukrainian resistance to its forces, analysts told The Moscow Times on Tuesday.

The administration building in central Kharkiv that was struck by a thermobaric cruise missile killing dozens.
3.1.22
Five days into its invasion of Ukraine, Russia appears to be shifting its tactics in response to unexpectedly ferocious Ukrainian resistance to its forces, analysts told The Moscow Times on Tuesday. With Western intelligence assessments claiming Russian troops have so far failed to achieve their key objectives, experts suggested that Moscow might instead adopt much more brutal tactics aimed at crushing Ukrainian resistance, similar to previous campaigns in Chechnya and Syria. Early on Tuesday morning, videos from Ukraine’s eastern second city of Kharkiv — which has put up a fierce defense despite being largely Russian-speaking and located just short of the border — showed a Russian rocket striking the city administration building, less than a day after footage appeared to document indiscriminate rocket fire striking civilian areas of the city. The attacks on Kharkiv followed claims by the UK Defense Ministry that Russia was shifting to “siege” tactics against both Kharkiv, and Chernihiv, a northern border city that it has so far been unable to occupy. “The Russian army is going to fight in the way it is equipped, prepared, and trained to do,” said Mark Galeotti, an analyst at the U.K.-based military think tank the Royal United Services Institute. “Which is to say, massive use of long-range fire before any advance of any kind.”
The footage of missile strikes against Ukrainian cities comes after five days of Russian forces failing to take a single major city, even as they moved deep into Ukraine. In the north and east, where the bulk of Ukraine’s army is positioned, the Russian advance has been slow, with reports of major casualties among Russian forces. In the south, Russia has performed better, with forces invading from Russian-occupied Crimea taking the cities of Melitopol and Berdyansk, and reportedly encircling Kherson. However, experts suggested that the Russians’ habit of sending unprotected armored columns deep into Ukrainian territory, along with the deployment of the RosGvardiya National Guard — a gendarmerie primarily used for law enforcement at home — in the vanguard may indicate that the Russians expected far less Ukrainian resistance than ultimately materialized. Clearly, there was an unrealistic idea among Russian military planners that the Ukrainian state was illegitimate, and would fracture at the first push. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry claims to have killed almost 6,000 Russian troops, a number that cannot be verified and may be exaggerated.
With its columns bogged down, the Kremlin will resort to blunt and massive force, as it has done in Chechnya and Syria. They are already using fuel-air explosives, which resemble a miniature nuclear explosion.
Dropping all pretense, Belarussian armor columns have now invaded Ukraine from the north, heading towards Kyiv.

Russia Steps Up Attacks on Ukrainian Cities - The Moscow Times
Russian air strikes hit a residential block in Kharkiv and the main TV tower in the capital Kyiv, Ukraine said on Tuesday, as Moscow stepped up attacks despite sanctions and warnings of a humanitarian crisis.