Western officials Putin could take Donbas

     London, Apr 21 (AP) Western officials say Ukraine will need economic and military support for months to come as the war grinds into a long conflict.
     As Russia's invasion enters a new phase focused on the eastern Donbas region, an official said Putin “is still in a position to win” the war, but not quickly.
     Speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence, two Western officials said Russia might be able to surround and destroy the bulk of Ukraine's forces and make territorial gains. An aim of taking all of the Donbas and securing a land bridge to Crimea is “potentially within reach” for Russia's forces.
     However, officials said it is far from certain Russia will achieve that goal. They said Russia had learned some of the lessons of past failures in northern Ukraine, and was showing more effective command-and-control.
     But they said Russia was still feeding troops into its eastern offensive “piecemeal” and advancing in long columns of vehicles along roads, leaving its forces vulnerable to attack.
     Officials said they also have not yet seen a major push up from the south, which would allow Russian forces to trap Ukraine's troops in a pincer movement. Partly that is due to 5,000 to 10,000 Russian troops attempting to overcome the last pocket of resistance in the port city of Mariupol.
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     Lisbon: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called on Portugal to support a European ban on Russian gas and oil to help his country's war effort.
     Speaking via video conference to the Portuguese parliament on Thursday, Zelenskyy asked the European Union member to help “speed up” sanctions and the delivery of more military aid.
     “I hope that you will also advocate a boycott of Russian oil and gas on the EU level,” he said. “The Russian occupiers killed people purely for entertainment, killed them inside their homes and in vehicles in which children were travelling.”
     The Ukrainian leader drew a parallel between his country's fight against Russian aggression and Portugal's 1974 Carnation Revolution, the military coup by left-leaning officers that overthrew an authoritarian regime and ushered in democracy.
     “The Portuguese know how to rid themselves of a dictatorship...I know that our nations understand each other,” he said during his speech that earned him a standing ovation by lawmakers.
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     Mariupol: The mayor of the besieged port city of Mariupol says Russian troops are burying Ukrainian civilians killed in the conflict in order to cover up “military crimes”.
     Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko claimed that the Russians buried hundreds of civilians killed in Manhush outside Mariupol.
     Boychenko said that “the bodies started disappearing from the streets of the city,” charging that the Russians were “hiding the trace of their crimes and using mass graves as one of the instruments for that”.
     He said that the Russians dug huge trenches near Manhush, 20 km (about 12 miles) west of Mariupol. “They are taking the bodies of the dead residents of Mariupol in trucks and throw them into those trenches.” He said during an online briefing.
     “They are hiding their military crimes,” he said. (AP) SCY
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(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)