Russian forces have withdrawn from Ukraine's Snake Island, a strategic outpost in the Black Sea, Russian and Ukrainian authorities said on Thursday.
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Snake Island, which Russia occupied on the first day of its invasion, achieved fame when Ukrainian border guards stationed there rejected a Russian warship's demand for their surrender.
Russia's Defense Ministry confirmed its troops had withdrawn from Snake Island, calling it a "goodwill gesture" and saying the troops had fulfilled the tasks assigned to them.
Meanwhile, Moscow's battle to wrest the entire Donbas region from Ukraine saw Russian forces pushing toward two villages south of Lysychansk while Ukrainian troops fought to prevent their encirclement.
Britain's Defense Ministry said Russian forces were making "incremental advances" in their offensive to capture Lysychansk, the last city in the Luhansk province under Ukrainian control following the retreat of Ukraine's forces from the neighboring city of Sievierodonetsk.
Russian troops and their separatist allies control 95% of Luhansk and about half of Donetsk, the two provinces that make up the mostly Russian-speaking Donbas.
The latest assessment by the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said the Ukrainians were likely in a fighting withdrawal to seek more defensible positions while draining the Russian forces of manpower and resources.
Avril Haines, the US director of national intelligence, said Russia "may think time is on its side" due to the escalating costs borne by the West and fatigue as the war grows longer. The most likely scenario predicted by American intelligence, Haines said, is a "grinding struggle" in which Russia consolidates its hold over southern Ukraine by the fall.
The US correctly predicted Russia would invade Ukraine in February, but was wrong in assessing that it would quickly seize Kyiv. Speaking at an event in Washington on Wednesday, Haines said Russian President Vladimir Putin "has effectively the same political goals that he had previously, which is to say that he wants to take most of Ukraine" and push it away from NATO.
"We perceive a disconnect between Putin's near-term military objectives in this area and his military's capacity, a kind of mismatch between his ambitions and what the military is able to accomplish," she said.
Putin also said his goals in Ukraine have not changed since the start of the war. He said they were "the liberation of the Donbas, the protection of these people, and the creation of conditions that would guarantee the security of Russia itself." He made no mention of his original stated goals to "demilitarize" and "de-Nazify" Ukraine.
He denied Moscow adjusted its strategy after failing to take Kyiv. "As you can see, the troops are moving and reaching the marks that were set for them for a certain stage of this combat work. Everything is going according to plan," Putin said at a news conference in Turkmenistan.
Meanwhile, crews continued to search through the rubble of the shopping mall in Kremenchuk where Ukrainian authorities say 20 people remain missing.
Ukrainian State Emergency Services press officer Svitlana Rybalko told The Associated Press that along with the 18 people killed, investigators found fragments of eight more bodies. It was not immediately clear whether that meant there were more victims. A number of survivors suffered severed limbs.
"The police cannot say for sure how many [victims] there are. So we are finding not the bodies but the fragments of bodies," Rybalko said. "Now we are clearing at the very epicenter of the blast. Here, we practically cannot find bodies as such."
Several families stood by what was left of the Amstor shopping center Wednesday morning in hope of finding missing loved ones.
After the attack on the mall, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of becoming a "terrorist" state. On Wednesday, he reproached NATO for not embracing or equipping his embattled country more fully.
"The open-door policy of NATO shouldn't resemble old turnstiles on Kyiv's subway, which stay open but close when you approach them until you pay," Zelenskyy told NATO leaders meeting in Madrid, speaking by video link. "Hasn't Ukraine paid enough? Hasn't our contribution to defending Europe and the entire civilization been sufficient?"
He asked for more modern artillery systems and other weapons and warned the NATO leaders they either had to provide Ukraine with the help it needed to defeat Russia or "face a delayed war between Russia and yourself."
NATO declared Russia the "most significant and direct threat" to its members' peace and security on Wednesday and vowed to strengthen the battered country.
The military organization's condemnation was not wholly surprising: Its chief earlier said Russia's war in Ukraine had created Europe's biggest security crisis since World War II. But it was a sobering about-face for an alliance that a decade ago called Moscow a strategic partner.
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Wednesday dismissed what she claimed was the Ukrainian government's "blatant provocation" in trying to blame the mall missile strike on Russia's military.
Britain's Defense Ministry said there was a "realistic possibility" that the mall strike "was intended to hit a nearby infrastructure target."
"Russian planners highly likely remain willing to accept a high level of collateral damage when they perceive military necessity in striking a target," the ministry said. "It is almost certain that Russia will continue to conduct strikes in an effort to interdict the resupplying of Ukrainian front-line forces."
Russia's military also is experiencing a shortage of more modern precision strike weapons, which is compounding civilian casualties, the British ministry said.
In southern Ukraine, a Russian missile strike on a multi-story apartment building Wednesday in the city of Mykolaiv killed at least four people and injured five, regional governor Vitaliy Kim said. Mykolaiv is a major port and seizing it – as well as Odesa farther west – would be key to Russia's objective of cutting off Ukraine from its Black Sea coast.
Russia's Defense Ministry said in a statement that the missile strike on Mykolaiv targeted a base for training "foreign mercenaries," as well as ammunition depots.
In other developments, US President Joe Biden pledged more American troops, warplanes and warships for Europe on Wednesday as NATO agreed to the biggest strengthening of its deterrents since the Cold War in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Biden's commitment at the Madrid summit "to defend every inch of allied territory" came as the US-led military alliance also set in motion a new plan to reinforce the Baltic states and Poland against any future Russian attack.
With more German, British and other allied troops to be on alert to deploy eastward, the United States is also adding to the 100,000 personnel already in Europe by sending more warships to Spain, planes to Britain, and pre-positioned weapons to the Baltics and more soldiers to Romania.
"We mean it when we say an attack against one is an attack against all," Biden said.
However, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi played down a threat of a near-term armed confrontation between NATO and Russia. "There is no risk of a military escalation. We must be ready, but there is no risk," he said.
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The Baltics originally sought permanent NATO bases and as much as a tenfold increase to NATO's troop presence from around 5,000 multinational soldiers prior to the Ukraine invasion, as well as adding air and maritime defenses.
What NATO agreed on Wednesday falls short of that, but it means more allied troops in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, more equipment, weapons and ammunition sent to the region, and setting up a system of rapid reinforcements.
In the past, the alliance relied on far fewer troops – some 40,000 – to be first in line to respond to any Russian attack or other crises.
"President Putin's war against Ukraine has shattered peace in Europe and has created the biggest security crisis in Europe since the Second World War," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said a news conference. "NATO has responded with strength and unity."
The United States will also create a new permanent army headquarters in Poland, which was immediately welcomed by Polish President Andrzej Duda, as Warsaw long sought a permanent US military base on its soil.
"It is a fact that strengthens our safety a lot ... in the difficult situation which we are in," Duda said.
In related news, Zelenskyy announced on Wednesday Ukraine was cutting ties with Syria after the country recognized the independence and sovereignty of the two breakaway regions of Luhansk and Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.
The Syrian presidency had affirmed its intention to build relations with the two breakaway republics in February.
