Russia: Military hardware moved across Crimea, Russia
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia has ratcheted up its battle for control of Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland. It is intensifying assaults on cities and towns along a front hundreds of miles long in what officials on both sides described as a new phase of the war.
After a Russian push to the capital failed to overrun the city, the Kremlin declared that its main goal was the capture of the eastern Donbas region. If successful, that offensive would give President Vladimir Putin a vital piece of Ukraine and a badly needed victory.
In recent weeks, Russian forces have regrouped in preparation for an all-out offensive in the Donbas. Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces in the region for the past eight years.
