Maj. Gen. Rustam Minnekayev, deputy commander of Russia’s Central Military District, said in remarks at a conference carried by state media on Friday that Moscow sought to control all of southern Ukraine to secure a land corridor to Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that Moscow annexed in 2014, and to Moldova’s Transnistria region, where he said Russian speakers suffer from discrimination.

To achieve these goals, Russia, in addition to capturing the parts of Donbas that remain under Ukrainian control, would also have to seize the coastal regions of Mykolaiv and Odessa. Russian forces came close to overrunning Mykolaiv in early March, but have since been repelled and control only a sliver of the region. Moscow, however, occupies most of the Kherson region in southern Ukraine and a large part of the Zaporizhzhia region….

“The worst war crime of the 21st century has been committed in Mariupol,” Mayor Vadym Boychenko said in remarks posted by the municipality on social media. “Putin is exterminating Ukrainians. He has already killed tens of thousands of civilians in Mariupol.”

Satellite images released on Thursday by Maxar Technologies showed what appeared to be more than 200 mass graves in the town of Manhush, just outside Mariupol. These graves could contain between 3,000 and 9,000 people, the municipality said. Russia didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. In general it ascribes all civilian casualties in Mariupol to Ukrainian forces.

Russia on Thursday announced a victory in the strategic port city even though Ukrainian forces were still blockaded inside its vast Azovstal steel plant. A spokesman for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that, while almost all of Mariupol was under Russian control, the fight for the plant continued.

A rare acknowledgment of Moscow’s deliberate strategy to level Mariupol, which used to be home to about 400,000 people, came from a Thursday address by Adam Delimkhanov, a Russian lawmaker from Chechnya who led Chechen units of the Russian National Guard in battles for the city.

“We can say that the special operation to destroy and cleanse Mariupol has now been concluded,” Mr. Delimkhanov said alongside a unit of Chechen Russian National Guard troops in front of a burning Mariupol building. The troops in the video chanted, “Russia is strength” and “Allahu akbar….”

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday said he agreed with a Western intelligence assessment that the war in Ukraine could continue until the end of next year and that Russia could win….

Mr. Putin ordered Russian forces to focus on seizing the parts of Donbas that remain under Ukrainian control after his initial plan to swiftly conquer the capital, Kyiv, and other major cities of eastern and central Ukraine failed because of fierce resistance. Russia’s new strategy, Ukrainian and Western officials say, is to encircle Ukraine’s best forces in Donbas through a pincer movement, with offensives pushing north from the Zaporizhzhia region and south from the town of Izyum….

How are you praying for the Ukrainian people? Share this article to raise awareness of Russia’s new schemes and advances.

(Excerpt from The Wall Street Journal. Photo Credit: Getty Images)