Kremlin vows victory in Ukraine as refugees swell to 1 million

Russian forces advanced deeper into southern Ukraine Thursday, appearing intent on seizing the country’s entire Black Sea coast, as the number of people fleeing Ukraine reached 1 million.

Ukrainians, bolstered by a huge influx of weapons from NATO countries, have put up surprisingly effective resistance, while Moscow’s forces have run into a host of logistical problems, according to Western military and intelligence assessments.

But the Kremlin insisted in a statement that the war was “going according to plan.”

Russian forces surging out of Crimea cut off Mariupol, a port city to the east. To the west, where they seized the city of Kherson Wednesday, they advanced on the port of Mikolaiv, leaving them just 60 miles from Odessa, the largest city in the south.

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In a second round of talks, Russia and Ukraine agreed to establish “humanitarian corridors” for civilians to evacuate the most dangerous areas, and to allow food and medicine to reach those places.

For eight years, President Vladimir Putin of Russia has been building what amounts to a massive military staging area in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula he invaded and annexed from Ukraine in 2014, and forces stationed there appeared well equipped to charge out of their bases and seize swaths of southern Ukrainian territory the moment the order came.

Russia’s near-monopoly on naval power in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov should have provided additional firepower to assist ground troops. Instead, their advance has been sluggish. While Russian forces have extensively shelled large cities like Kharkiv, Chernihiv and Kyiv, none have fallen to Moscow’s control.

Russians have seized a coastal corridor along the Sea of Azov, linking their forces in Crimea to those in southeastern Ukraine. In that stretch, only Mariupol held out Thursday.

Putin, acknowledging Russia’s war casualties for the first time, said Thursday that he would pay the equivalent of almost $50,000 to the family of each Russian soldier killed. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said 9,000 Russian troops had been killed, a day after Moscow said it had lost fewer than 500 troops.

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Such figures could not be verified, but even by the Russian count, it is already the bloodiest conflict for Russia’s military since the 1999-2000 Chechen war.

Nonetheless, the Kremlin, in a statement, said that its aims of ensuring a “demilitarized” and neutral Ukraine “will be achieved no matter what.”

Zelenskyy, in his first news conference since the invasion, expressed willingness to compromise but did not specify on what issues and held out little hope of reaching an agreement anytime soon. President Emmanuel Macron of France emerged pessimistic from a long phone conversation with Putin, according to an aide to Macron, who said the Russian leader seemed determined to control all of Ukraine.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, said 1 million people had fled Ukraine for neighbors to the West, an increase of more than 300,000 from the day before.

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