Russia Eyes Conquest of Southern Ukraine; Leak Suggests Over 20k Casualties So Far

© Reuters

By Geoffrey Smith 

Investing.com -- Russia added the conquest of southern Ukraine to the core objectives of its campaign, signaling a more ambitious military campaign in the coming weeks.

The news agency Interfax reported the Defense Ministry in Moscow as saying that the 'second stage' of its 'special military operation' now includes 'full control' of the south of the country. Only a week ago, President Vladimir Putin had said that his forces' primary aim was to secure control of the Donbas region, expanding the breakaway statelets which Russia's proxies have run since 2014. At the time of his invasion in February, Putin had said he had no plans to occupy further regions of Ukraine. 

The news agency Tass, meanwhile, reported that the high command intends to secure a corridor running across the whole of southern Ukraine to Transnistria - another Russian-sponsored breakaway region in eastern Moldova. That would imply the loss of Ukraine's entire coastline and consequently its access to world markets for its key agricultural exports. The report appears to confirm Russian plans to dismember its neighbor, which has been an independent country and a UN member since 1991.

Under the so-called second phase of the operation, Russian forces have launched a major offensive in the east of Ukraine, having failed to capture the capital Kyiv in the first phase. 

Interfax also reported Major-General Rustam Minnekayev as saying that the army will seek to establish a land corridor to Crimea, the Ukrainian region that it annexed at the same time as the Donbas regions seceded. The importance of a land corridor has risen, given Moscow's inability to secure control of the Black Sea coastline. It has lost both its flagship, the cruiser Moskva, and the Saratov, a large supply ship, to Ukrainian missiles in the last month.

The announcement comes a day after Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told President Vladimir Putin that his forces had complete control of the city of Mariupol, despite ongoing resistance from Ukrainian soldiers in the Azovstal iron and steel works, a vast industrial complex some 3 miles long. 

Separately, a report overnight by the typically pro-Kremlin Russian news outlet Readovka cited a closed Defense Ministry briefing as saying that Russia's military losses had been far higher than previously admitted. It estimated over 13,400 soldiers were killed and another 7,000 missing. If the usual ratio of killed-to-wounded applies to the current campaign, that would suggest Russia has suffered over 50,000 casualties in eight weeks of fighting, over a quarter of all the forces it assembled for the attack.

Readovka's post was quickly taken down again.