ANDRIIVKA, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine gathered its dead and collected evidence of Russian atrocities on the ruined outskirts of Kyiv, as the two sides geared up Wednesday for what could become a climactic battle by Moscow’s forces to seize the country’s industrial east.
As the U.S. and its Western allies moved to impose new sanctions against the Kremlin over what they branded war crimes, Russia completed the pullout of all of its estimated 24,000 or more troops from the Kyiv and Chernihiv areas in the north, and they have gone into Belarus or Russia to resupply and reorganize, a U.S. defense official speaking on condition of anonymity said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Moscow is now marshaling reinforcements and trying to push deep into the country’s east, where the Kremlin has said its goal is to “liberate” the Donbas, Ukraine’s mostly Russian-speaking industrial heartland.