Ukraine claimed to have destroyed more Russian forces on Saturday, as the Kremlin continued to bomb civilian targets on the tenth day of its invasion, and a plan to evacuate residents from the besieged city of Mariupol fell apart because of hostilities.

The defence ministry in Kyiv said its soldiers had shot down an enemy helicopter and a warplane, capturing its pilot. They also launched a successful counter-attack in the Kharkiv region, seizing equipment. The city, Ukraine’s second biggest, has been under ferocious Russian bombardment.

Russia’s military machine controls much of south-eastern and southern Ukraine, including the city of Kherson and its surrounding province. Residents flooded into its main square on Saturday and protested peacefully and noisily against occupation.

They waved Ukrainian flags and even hijacked a Russian armoured personnel carrier, taking it for a spin, to loud applause. Similar large-scale anti-Russian demonstrations took place in Melitopol, where Russian soldiers fired into the air, and the Azov Sea port of Berdyansk.

It is too early to say whether Vladimir Putin’s ambitious plan to conquer Ukraine and topple its pro-western government is grinding towards failure. But there is no doubt Ukraine’s continued ability to fight back has defied his apparent assumption of a swift and largely unopposed Russian military victory.

Speaking to the BBC, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, reinforced the message that Moscow’s campaign was faltering and said Ukraine “can absolutely win against Russia”. He observed: “The war has already not gone as Russian president Vladimir Putin might have planned.”

US officials point to the fact that Ukrainian aircraft are still operational this weekend, together with some air defence units. It is a scenario most had believed unlikely when Moscow’s so-called “special operation” began last week. Russia has forbidden the word “war” and made its use a criminal offence.

“The Ukrainians still have a significant majority of their air combat power available to them, both fixed-wing and rotary wing, as well as unmanned systems and surface-to-air systems,” a US official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

With its land invasion apparently stalled, and with little progress made in the advance of a Russian super-column towards Kyiv, Moscow is increasingly turning to indiscriminate shelling and bombing of civilians. The objective, Kyiv believes, is to spread panic and terror.

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Multiple cities were hit on Saturday. They included Bila Tserkva, south of the capital, and Kharkiv, where residents spent another night in underground shelters and metro stations. There was fierce fighting in Bucha, just north-west of Kyiv, with reports of civilian casualties.

(Source: The Guardian)