Bachmut’s battle drags on
07:00 | Ukrainian forces continue bloody battle for Bachmut. The US prefers to see the Ukrainian military prioritize a spring counter-offensive. “I get it, but it’s an apparent contradiction,” says former army commander Mart de Kruif.
This is the state of affairs on Wednesday
Russian troops they are carrying out round-the-clock attacks against Ukrainian positions in the east of the country, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said.
Ukrainian troops they say they have repelled some Russian attacks in the eastern Luhansk region, but the situation remains difficult, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office said on Wednesday.
At least 6,000 children from Ukraine they traveled to Russian “re-education camps” last year and several hundred were held there for weeks or months after their scheduled return, according to a new report released in the United States.
THE Defense Minister of UkraineOleksii Reznikov said Zelensky asked him to stay in his current post after a corruption scandal devastated his ministry and cast doubt on his role.
According to a tally by the specialized think tank International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS), after nine months of fighting in Ukraine, the Russian military is estimated to have nearly 40 percent of its prewar tank fleet lost.
Wagner’s boss Yevgeny Prigozhin he admitted that his group of mercenaries is having difficulties in Ukraine and will soon be ‘shrunken’ in size. “The number of Wagner units will decrease, and we won’t even be able to do the tasks we would like to do,” Prigozhin said.
THE European Commission he called for a ban on the export of vital technology worth €11 billion to Russia to further weaken the Kremlin’s war effort.
NATO defense ministers they met in Brussels, where Jens Stoltenberg, head of the alliance, urged Western countries to step up supplies to Ukraine.
THE allies of Ukraine they said it was unlikely they would be able to deliver the previously promised number of tanks. After a meeting of Western defense ministers in Brussels, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said they would not be able to reach battalion size.
THE NATO countries they are ramping up production of 155mm artillery and need to ramp up that production further to help Ukraine, Stoltenberg said.
Ukraine gets one from the UK and other European countries support package worth £200 million for military equipment, including spare parts for tanks and artillery ammunition, the British government announced.