Russia claims village on outskirts of Bakhmut in big push in east

Russia claimed on Tuesday to have captured a village on the northern outskirts of the city of Bakhmut. This is about to encircle what will be the biggest booty in Ukraine since last summer.

There was no immediate response from Kyiv to Moscow’s claims about Vlahodatne village, and Reuters was unable to immediately confirm the situation there. It comes three days after the head of Russia’s Wagner Group said mercenary forces had captured the village in an attack Kyiv said had been repulsed.

The Moscow Defense Ministry said in a statement that the village, located on one of the main roads to Bakhmut, about 5 kilometers (3 miles) north, was captured with the help of air support.

Moscow announced Move forward if incremental In recent weeks the region has captured the salt-mining town of Soledar, north of Bahmut.

was it to force Ukraine Withdrawing from the city, which once housed 75,000 people, would be Moscow’s first major award since it captured the cities of Sievierodnetsk and Lyschansk of similar size in July.

Two civilians, a boy and a 70-year-old man, were killed by Russian artillery fire on Tuesday during the fighting for Bakhmut, said regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko. He said four other people were injured in the attack.

Separately, a large Russian force launched an offensive this week against the Ukrainian-held fortress of Vuhledar, further south along the same Eastern Front. Kyiv says it has largely repelled the attack so far.

The British Ministry of Defense said the Russian forces in the new Vuhledar offensive were at least the size of a brigade and typically consisted of thousands of troops.

In a highly detailed daily update, the ministry said the Russians were advancing several hundred meters across the river towards Vhleda, where they could gain more local gains. He said the attack on Vuhledar was unlikely to result in a major breakthrough but could be intended to draw Ukraine’s efforts away from Bakhmut’s defenses.

Despite weeks of intense trench warfare that both sides compared to a meat grinder, the front in eastern Ukraine has largely frozen in place since November after Kyiv recaptured swaths of territory in late 2022. It had been.

More recently, however, momentum has returned to Russia, which has seen its first significant rise since mid-last year.

Military experts say Moscow will move forward in the coming months before Kyiv receives hundreds of new supplies of Western tanks and armored vehicles for counterattacks to retake occupied territories. seems determined.

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky described the Russian offensive in the east as an attempt to exact “revenge” for previous losses.

“And I don’t think they can provide society with a convincing positive result in the attack. I have confidence in my army. and prepare a massive counterattack,” he said on Monday.

According to Kyiv, the Russian offensive in recent weeks has taken a huge toll, initially relying primarily on Wagner’s mercenaries, some of whom were recruited from Russian prisons and mostly trained and equipped. Thousands of unarmed prisoners were thrown into the battle.

But Russia’s call-up of hundreds of thousands of reservists late last year means Moscow can now reorganize its regular military forces, which were exhausted or depleted early in the war.

Western military experts say the Bahmut itself played no strategic role. However, this is one of the few significant cities in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine still under Ukrainian control, and Moscow is now incapable of occupying the entire Donbass “special military operation” he ordered 11 months ago. ” is the main purpose of

After months of lobbying, the West won pledges for tanks, and Kyiv has pushed for more weapons, including demands for jet fighters such as the U.S. F-16. Neither side has been able to secure control over Ukraine.

The West has so far refused to send weapons that could be used to strike deeper into Russia, and no country seems willing to cross the line. When US President Joe Biden was asked by reporters at the White House on Monday whether Washington would send F-16s, he replied with a flat “no.”

Still, Ukraine has hope. Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov was scheduled to meet with President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Tuesday, who told reporters in The Hague on Monday that “nothing is excluded” regarding military aid. ” he said.

Macron said any move to dispatch the jets would depend on factors such as the need to avoid escalation and assurances that the aircraft would “not touch Russian soil”.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki also did not rule out the possibility of supplying F-16s to neighboring Ukraine, responding to questions from reporters before Biden spoke.

In a statement posted on his website, Morawiecki said such a transfer would be made “in full coordination” with NATO. Poland has long sought more aggressive military support for Ukraine.

A spokesperson for British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Tuesday that London does not consider its own jets useful.

“British … fighter planes are very sophisticated and it takes months to learn how to fly them. a spokesperson told reporters.