KYIV: Russian forces claimed incremental gains in eastern Ukraine on Monday, marking their biggest advance in months, following wave after wave of attacks that Kiev said Moscow had disregarded the lives of its own men.
The administrator of the Russian-controlled parts of Donetsk province, Denis Pushilin, said troops have gained a foothold in Vuhledar, a coal mining town whose ruins have been a Ukrainian bastion since the start of the war.
A day earlier, the head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force said his fighters had killed Blahodatne, a village just north of Bakhmuta city that has been the focus of persistent Russian attacks for months.
Kiev said it had repelled attacks on Blahodatne and Vuhledar, and Reuters could not independently verify the situation there. But the locations of the reported fighting indicated clear, if gradual, Russian gains after about two months when the front lines were largely frozen.
“The situation is very difficult. Bakhmut, Vuhledar and other sectors in the Donetsk region – there are constant Russian attacks,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video address late Sunday.
“The enemy does not count its people and despite numerous casualties it continues to attack with a high intensity.”
Vuhledar is south of Bakhmut, near where the eastern frontline protects the Russian-controlled railway lines that supply Moscow’s troops in southern Ukraine. Mykola Salamakha, a Ukrainian colonel and military analyst, told Ukrainian Radio NV that Moscow’s attack would come at a huge cost.
“The city is in a highland and an extremely strong defensive hub has been created there,” he said. “This is a repeat of the situation in Bakhmut – one wave of Russian troops after another is crushed by the Ukrainian forces.”
WESTERN DELAYS
Western countries have pledged hundreds of modern tanks and armored vehicles in recent weeks to equip Ukrainian troops for a counter-offensive to retake territory later in 2023.
But the delivery of those weapons is still months away, leaving Kiev to fight through the winter in what both sides have described as a meat grinder of relentless, exhausting warfare.
After Russia exhausted its army with a failed attack on Kiev last year, Ukrainian forces counterattacked in the fall and recaptured parts of the territory. But that advance has stalled since November, allowing Russia to regain the initiative.
Moscow’s Wagner mercenary army has sent thousands of convicts recruited from Russian prisons to battle around Bakhmut, buying time for Russia’s regular army to reassemble units with hundreds of thousands of reservists.
Zelenskyy said the West must speed up the delivery of its promised weapons so that Ukraine can go on the offensive again.
“Russia wants the war to continue and exhaust our troops,” he said. “So we must make time our weapon.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Western arms-supplying countries are leading “NATO countries to become increasingly directly involved in the conflict – but it doesn’t have the potential to change the course of events and won’t.”
The Institute for the Study of War think tank said Monday that “the failure of the West to provide the necessary equipment” was the main reason last year that Kiev’s advance had stalled since November.
That would have allowed Russia to put pressure on Bakhmut and strengthen the front against a future Ukrainian counterattack, the researchers said in a report, though they said Ukraine could still retake territory once the promised weapons arrive.
Zelenskyy met Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in Mykolaiv on Monday, a rare visit by a foreign leader close to the front. The city, where the Russian advance south was halted, was under relentless bombardment until Ukraine pushed back the front line in November.
Zelenskyy’s office released footage of the president greeting Frederiksen with a handshake on a snowy street before entering a hospital where they met wounded soldiers.
While Kiev has won arms from the West, Moscow has turned to allies, including Iran, which Kiev and the West say has supplied Russia with hundreds of long-range “suicide drones” used to attack Ukrainian cities.
Over the weekend, an Iranian military factory was hit by a drone strike that appeared to have been carried out by Israel, according to a US official. Israel has not commented.
Kiev suggested the attack on Iran was a reward for Tehran’s military support to Russia: “Explosive night in Iran,” senior Zelenskyy aide Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted. “Warned you.”
Iran summoned the chargé d’affaires to the Ukrainian embassy over Podolyak’s remarks. Russia said the attack on Iran could have “unforeseeable consequences for peace and stability in the Middle East”.
Unlike many Western countries, Israel has failed to openly arm Kiev, but it is seen as alarmed by Russia’s reliance on Iranian drone technology which it sees as a regional security threat.
Ukraine, which has received significant deliveries of UAVs from its partners, said it planned to spend nearly $550 million on drones this year, with 16 supply agreements signed with Ukrainian manufacturers.
France, meanwhile, said it had agreed with Australia to work together to manufacture “several thousand” shells for Ukraine.
Russia’s invasion, launched on Feb. 24 last year, claiming it needed to protect itself from its neighbors’ ties to the West, has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions from their homes.
The administrator of the Russian-controlled parts of Donetsk province, Denis Pushilin, said troops have gained a foothold in Vuhledar, a coal mining town whose ruins have been a Ukrainian bastion since the start of the war.
A day earlier, the head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force said his fighters had killed Blahodatne, a village just north of Bakhmuta city that has been the focus of persistent Russian attacks for months.
Kiev said it had repelled attacks on Blahodatne and Vuhledar, and Reuters could not independently verify the situation there. But the locations of the reported fighting indicated clear, if gradual, Russian gains after about two months when the front lines were largely frozen.
“The situation is very difficult. Bakhmut, Vuhledar and other sectors in the Donetsk region – there are constant Russian attacks,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video address late Sunday.
“The enemy does not count its people and despite numerous casualties it continues to attack with a high intensity.”
Vuhledar is south of Bakhmut, near where the eastern frontline protects the Russian-controlled railway lines that supply Moscow’s troops in southern Ukraine. Mykola Salamakha, a Ukrainian colonel and military analyst, told Ukrainian Radio NV that Moscow’s attack would come at a huge cost.
“The city is in a highland and an extremely strong defensive hub has been created there,” he said. “This is a repeat of the situation in Bakhmut – one wave of Russian troops after another is crushed by the Ukrainian forces.”
WESTERN DELAYS
Western countries have pledged hundreds of modern tanks and armored vehicles in recent weeks to equip Ukrainian troops for a counter-offensive to retake territory later in 2023.
But the delivery of those weapons is still months away, leaving Kiev to fight through the winter in what both sides have described as a meat grinder of relentless, exhausting warfare.
After Russia exhausted its army with a failed attack on Kiev last year, Ukrainian forces counterattacked in the fall and recaptured parts of the territory. But that advance has stalled since November, allowing Russia to regain the initiative.
Moscow’s Wagner mercenary army has sent thousands of convicts recruited from Russian prisons to battle around Bakhmut, buying time for Russia’s regular army to reassemble units with hundreds of thousands of reservists.
Zelenskyy said the West must speed up the delivery of its promised weapons so that Ukraine can go on the offensive again.
“Russia wants the war to continue and exhaust our troops,” he said. “So we must make time our weapon.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Western arms-supplying countries are leading “NATO countries to become increasingly directly involved in the conflict – but it doesn’t have the potential to change the course of events and won’t.”
The Institute for the Study of War think tank said Monday that “the failure of the West to provide the necessary equipment” was the main reason last year that Kiev’s advance had stalled since November.
That would have allowed Russia to put pressure on Bakhmut and strengthen the front against a future Ukrainian counterattack, the researchers said in a report, though they said Ukraine could still retake territory once the promised weapons arrive.
Zelenskyy met Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in Mykolaiv on Monday, a rare visit by a foreign leader close to the front. The city, where the Russian advance south was halted, was under relentless bombardment until Ukraine pushed back the front line in November.
Zelenskyy’s office released footage of the president greeting Frederiksen with a handshake on a snowy street before entering a hospital where they met wounded soldiers.
While Kiev has won arms from the West, Moscow has turned to allies, including Iran, which Kiev and the West say has supplied Russia with hundreds of long-range “suicide drones” used to attack Ukrainian cities.
Over the weekend, an Iranian military factory was hit by a drone strike that appeared to have been carried out by Israel, according to a US official. Israel has not commented.
Kiev suggested the attack on Iran was a reward for Tehran’s military support to Russia: “Explosive night in Iran,” senior Zelenskyy aide Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted. “Warned you.”
Iran summoned the chargé d’affaires to the Ukrainian embassy over Podolyak’s remarks. Russia said the attack on Iran could have “unforeseeable consequences for peace and stability in the Middle East”.
Unlike many Western countries, Israel has failed to openly arm Kiev, but it is seen as alarmed by Russia’s reliance on Iranian drone technology which it sees as a regional security threat.
Ukraine, which has received significant deliveries of UAVs from its partners, said it planned to spend nearly $550 million on drones this year, with 16 supply agreements signed with Ukrainian manufacturers.
France, meanwhile, said it had agreed with Australia to work together to manufacture “several thousand” shells for Ukraine.
Russia’s invasion, launched on Feb. 24 last year, claiming it needed to protect itself from its neighbors’ ties to the West, has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions from their homes.
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