2014 and declared some territory there independent he gained prominence as head of russian forces deployed to syria in 2015 to back president bashar assads government during the countrys devastating civil war us officials say he has a record of brutality against civilians in syria and elsewhere russian authorities do not generally confirm such appointments and have said nothing about a new role for dvornikov who received the hero of russia medal one of the countrys highest awards from president vladimir putin in 2016 us national security adviser jake sullivan speaking sunday on cnns state of the union played down the appointments significance what we have learned in the first several weeks of this war is that ukraine will never be subjected to russia sullivan said it doesnt matter which general president putin tries to appoint western military analysts say russias assault increasingly is focusing on a sickleshaped arc of eastern ukraine from kharkiv ukraines secondlargest city in the north to kherson in the south that could counter russias earlier problem of spreading its offensive too widely over too broad a geographic area just looking at it on a map you can see that they will be able to bring to bear a lot more power in a lot more concentrated fashion by focusing mainly on eastern ukraine pentagon spokesman john kirby said friday newly released maxar technologies satellite imagery showed an 8 miles 13 kilometer convoy of military vehicles headed south through ukraine to donbas recalling images of a convoy that got stalled on roads to kyiv for weeks before russia gave up on trying to take the capital on sunday russian forces shelled governmentcontrolled kharkiv and sent reinforcements toward izyum to the southeast to try to break ukraines defenses the ukrainian military command said the russians also kept up their siege of mariupol a key southern port that has been under attack and surrounded for nearly one and a half months a russian defense ministry spokesman major general igor konashenkov said russias military used airlaunched missiles to hit ukraines s300 airdefense missile systems in the southern mykolaiv region and at an air base in chuhuiv a city not far from kharkiv sealaunched russian cruise missiles destroyed the headquarters of a ukrainian military unit stationed farther west in the dnipro region konashenkov said neither the ukrainian nor the russian military claims could be independently verified missiles twice struck the airport in dnipro ukraines fourthlargest city on sunday the regional governor said on sunday night zelenskyy again appealed for more assistance speaking with german chancellor olaf scholz he said he discussed how to strengthen sanctions against russia and force russia to seek peace i am glad to note that the german position has recently changed in favor of ukraine i consider it absolutely logical zelenskyy said the president of the european commission said on cnns state of the union that ukraines response to a questionnaire she gave zelenskyy will help her decide whether to recommend the nation as a