Russia signaled a doable recalibration of its conflict goals in Ukraine on Friday because the Kremlin confronted spreading world ostracism for the brutal invasion, hardened Western financial punishments and a decided Ukrainian resistance that seemed to be making some positive factors on the bottom.

An announcement by Russia’s Protection Ministry stated the objectives of the “first stage of the operation” had been “primarily completed,” with Ukraine’s fight capabilities “considerably decreased,” and that it will now concentrate on securing Ukraine’s japanese Donbas area, the place Russia-backed separatists have been preventing for eight years.

The Protection Ministry assertion was ambiguous about additional doable Russian territorial ambitions in Ukraine, the place its floor forces have been largely stymied by the unexpectedly robust Ukrainian army response.

However on a day when President Biden was visiting U.S. troopers in Poland close to the Ukrainian border, the assertion steered the likelihood that the Russians had been searching for a approach to salvage some form of achievement earlier than the prices of the conflict they launched a month in the past grew to become impossibly onerous.

Whereas Russia “doesn’t exclude” that its forces will storm main Ukrainian cities equivalent to Chernihiv, Mykolaiv and the capital, Kyiv, the Protection Ministry assertion stated that taking them over was not the first goal.

“As particular person items perform their duties — and they’re being solved efficiently — our forces and means can be focused on the principle factor: the whole liberation of the Donbas,” Col. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi, a senior Russian army commander, stated within the assertion, his first since Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24.

Whether or not Basic Rudskoi’s assertion was honest or just strategic misdirection was tough to evaluate. However the assertion amounted to probably the most direct acknowledgment but that Russia could also be unable to take full management of Ukraine and would as an alternative goal the Donbas area, the place Russia has acknowledged the independence of two Kremlin-backed separatist areas that it calls the “Donetsk Individuals’s Republic” and the “Luhansk Individuals’s Republic.”

Russia has additionally insisted that Ukraine acknowledge its management of Crimea, which President Vladimir V. Putin’s forces seized from Ukraine in 2014.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has dominated out ceding these areas to cease the conflict.

Pavel Luzin, a Russian army analyst, cautioned that the general public pronouncements of Russian army commanders ought to be regarded skeptically. Whereas Russia may certainly be narrowing its conflict goals, he stated, Basic Rudskoi’s assertion may be a feint as Russia regroups for a brand new offensive.

“Let’s imagine that it is a sign that we’re now not insisting on dismantling Ukrainian statehood,” Mr. Luzin stated. “However I might quite see it as a distracting maneuver.”

Basic Rudskoi’s assertion got here as Ukraine acknowledged that Russian forces had been “partially profitable” in attaining one in all their key targets — securing a land hall from Russia to the Crimean Peninsula.

Whereas Russia already managed a lot of the world, the Ukrainian Protection Ministry stated the route allowed Russian troops and provides to stream between Crimea and Russia.

However some Ukrainian officers stated the importance of such a route is likely to be overstated. Oleksandr Danylyuk, a former secretary of the Nationwide Safety and Protection Council of Ukraine beneath Mr. Zelensky, described the land bridge as a minor Russian victory and stated the Kremlin was shifting to safe Donetsk and Luhansk to “promote to the Russian public as a possible victory.”

In Moscow, Mr. Putin, who has made any criticism of the conflict a possible crime, used a televised videoconference with the winners of a presidential arts prize on Friday to ship a diatribe about “cancel tradition” that made no point out of the conflict in Ukraine.

In embracing a time period that has develop into a favourite of the American political proper to reprise his competition that the West is making an attempt to erase Russian tradition and historical past, Mr. Putin cited J.Okay. Rowling, creator of the “Harry Potter” books, whose feedback about transgender girls have been criticized as transphobic.

“Not so way back, the youngsters’s author J.Okay. Rowling was additionally ‘canceled’ for the truth that she — the creator of books which have offered tons of of tens of millions of copies all over the world — didn’t please followers of so-called gender freedoms,” Mr. Putin stated.

Ms. Rowling responded on Twitter that, “Critiques of Western cancel tradition are probably not finest made by these at present slaughtering civilians for the crime of resistance, or who jail and poison their critics.” She added the hashtag #IStandWithUkraine.

As Mr. Putin spoke, there have been indications that Ukrainian forces had been making some progress within the second week of their counteroffensive. A senior Pentagon official stated that Russian forces now not had full management of the southern port of Kherson and that town, the primary main city middle to be captured within the Russian invasion, was now “contested territory.”

The Pentagon evaluation contradicted Basic Rudskoi’s declare on Friday that the Kherson area was “beneath full management.”

In one other signal of the bloody stalemate in Ukraine, Russian troopers have adopted “defensive positions” close to Kyiv, the Pentagon official stated, including that Russia seemed to be “prioritizing” the combat in japanese Ukraine, as Basic Rudskoi had indicated.

“Clearly, they overestimated their means to take Kyiv and overestimated their means to take any inhabitants middle,” the Pentagon official stated.

Mr. Biden, on the second day of his three-day go to to Europe due to the Ukraine disaster, traveled to Rzeszow, Poland, about 50 miles from the Ukrainian border, the place he met with members of the 82nd Airborne Division who’re serving as a part of NATO’s efforts to guard Poland and different member states from Russian aggression.

Greeting American service members who had been consuming pizza in a cafeteria, Mr. Biden referred to as them “the best preventing power within the historical past of the world,” and added, “I personally thanks for what you do.”

Later, Mr. Biden met with President Andrzej Duda of Poland and officers managing the humanitarian response to the greater than two million Ukrainian refugees who’ve fled to Poland to flee the shelling and deprivation.

Mr. Biden additionally introduced a deal to extend U.S. shipments of pure gasoline to assist wean Europe off Russian vitality. Nevertheless it remained unclear precisely how the administration would obtain its objectives.

The deal requires america to ship an extra 15 billion cubic meters of liquefied pure gasoline — roughly 10 to 12 % of present annual U.S. exports to all international locations. Nevertheless it doesn’t tackle the dearth of port capability to ship and obtain extra gasoline on each side of the Atlantic.

Nonetheless, American gasoline executives welcomed a renewed emphasis on exports as an indication that the Biden administration was now looking for to advertise the U.S. oil and gasoline trade quite than punish it for contributions to local weather change.

“I don’t know how they’ll do that, however I don’t wish to criticize them as a result of for the primary time they’re making an attempt to do the fitting factor,” stated Charif Souki, govt chairman of Tellurian, a U.S. gasoline producer that’s planning to construct an export terminal in Louisiana.

Robert Habeck, the vice chancellor and financial minister of Germany, stated his nation anticipated to halve imports of Russian oil by midsummer and almost finish them by yr’s finish — prior to many thought doable. He estimated that Germany, Europe’s greatest financial system, may very well be freed from Russian gasoline by mid-2024.

Pictures and movies from Ukraine that emerged on Friday underscored the escalating demise toll and destruction.

Newly surfaced safety digicam footage, verified by The New York Occasions, confirmed an assault on individuals in line for emergency help exterior a publish workplace and purchasing middle within the battered northeastern metropolis of Kharkiv on Thursday. Oleg Sinegubov, the top of the regional authorities there, stated that at the least six civilians had been killed and 15 wounded.

Pictures out of Kharkiv on Friday additionally confirmed a big fireball and close by automobiles and buildings on fireplace, as residents fled on foot and bicycle, carrying no matter belongings they may seize within the aftermath of the assault.

Within the central metropolis of Dnipro, Russian missile strikes on a army facility destroyed buildings late Thursday night time, in accordance with Ukrainian officers, who stated that casualties had been nonetheless being assessed.

And in Mariupol, the southern port savaged by Russian assaults, Ukrainian officers stated that an estimated 300 individuals had been killed in a March 16 strike on a theater used as a bomb shelter.

It was unclear how officers had arrived at that estimate. Ukrainian officers have stated that about 130 individuals had been rescued from the theater, which was attacked regardless that “youngsters” had been written in large letters on the pavement on each side of the constructing.

The United Nations stated on Friday that greater than 1,000 civilians have been killed, together with 93 youngsters, since Russia’s invasion started, many in what appeared to have been indiscriminate bombardments that might represent conflict crimes.

The United Nations cautioned that it had not been capable of confirm the demise toll in areas of intense battle, together with Mariupol, and stated the precise variety of injured and useless was more likely to be significantly increased.

In an indication that diplomatic efforts had been struggling, Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s overseas minister, rejected feedback by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, who had steered that Ukraine was open to concessions in 4 key areas.

In an interview launched Friday, Mr. Erdogan, who’s internet hosting talks between Ukrainian and Russian delegations, stated that Ukraine was keen to drop its bid for NATO membership, settle for Russian as an official language, make “sure concessions” about disarmament and conform to “collective safety.”

However Mr. Kuleba stated the negotiations had proved “very tough” and that Ukraine had “taken a powerful place and doesn’t relinquish its calls for.”

“We insist, to begin with, on a cease-fire, safety ensures and territorial integrity of Ukraine,” he stated, including that there was “no consensus with Russia on the 4 factors talked about by the president of Turkey.”

“Specifically,” he stated, “the Ukrainian language is and would be the just one state language in Ukraine.”

Reporting was contributed by Helene Cooper, Ivan Nechepurenko, Valerie Hopkins, Andrew E. Kramer, Megan Specia, Nick Cumming-Bruce and Clifford Krauss.