Russia said on Tuesday that it would fight until it took Bakhmout, the epicenter of particularly deadly fighting for months in eastern Ukraine, deeming the city crucial for the continuation of its offensive despite the fierce defense of the Ukrainians.
The day before, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, rejecting speculation of a tactical withdrawal, ordered reinforcements to be sent to this virtually destroyed city, despite recent Russian advances and the threat of encirclement.
The Ukrainians intend to resist in order to further wear out the Russian offensive forces in anticipation of a counter-offensive that they will launch with the heavy weapons and modern armor promised by the West.
As an echo, Poland announced on Tuesday that it would deliver ten of its German-made Leopard 2 battle tanks this week, in the handling of which Ukrainian soldiers have been trained.
Bakhmout "is an important node (of the lines) of defense of Ukrainian soldiers in the Donbass", Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday.
“His capture will allow new offensive operations to be carried out in depth,” he added during a meeting.
While the strategic value of Bakhmout is disputed, the city has taken on symbolic and tactical importance, given the heavy losses suffered by both sides. It is the longest and deadliest battle since the Russian invasion began in February 2022.
Moscow has been seeking at least a symbolic victory since its bitter setbacks in the fall, and hopes that the city's fall can open up control of part of Donbass, an industrial region in eastern Ukraine. , which still eludes him.
The city, which has barely 4,000 inhabitants against 70,000 before the invasion, has been largely destroyed.
After recent advances, the Russians seem to control access to the city to the north, south and east, threatening encirclement.
Troops from the paramilitary group Wagner led this attack at the cost of very heavy losses, as even the boss of this group of mercenaries, Evguéni Prigojine, admitted.
The latter is in open conflict with the Russian military hierarchy, which he accuses of not delivering enough ammunition to his men engaged on the front line in Bakhmout. According to him, the Russian lines would collapse if his troops were to withdraw.
He thus mocked the Russian Minister of Defense on Tuesday, saying that he "did not have met him" on the battlefield, while his ministry affirmed on Saturday without saying more that Mr. Shoigu had gone to the combat zone. On Sunday, the minister was in Mariupol, more than a hundred kilometers from the front.
On the Ukrainian side, the battle gave birth to a new hero, after the viral diffusion of a video appearing to show the summary execution of a soldier prisoner of the Russians, of a burst of Kalashnikov after launching "Glory to the Ukraine!".
The Ukrainian army identified the man on Tuesday as "the soldier of the 30th mechanized brigade Tymofiï Mykolayovych Shadura", specifying that he had been reported missing near Bakhmout on February 3.
"Our hero's revenge will be inevitable," the military added.
AFP could not independently verify the origin of the images or whether they show, as Ukrainian officials claim, the execution of a prisoner, which would constitute a war crime.
President Zelensky promised Monday to "find the murderers" and his head of diplomacy, Dmytro Kouleba, called for an investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Moscow and kyiv also carried out a new exchange of prisoners, Ukraine having announced that it had recovered 130 people, and Russia 90.
The Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, was expected in Kiev for his third trip to Ukraine since the start of the war, in particular to discuss the extension of the agreement with Russia on the export of Ukrainian cereals.
In Russia, where a crackdown on criticism of the Ukraine invasion and President Vladimir Putin is raging, a 23-year-old student was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison for posting "false" information on Telegram about the Russian army.
Finally, Belarus, an ally of Moscow, said on Tuesday that it had arrested around twenty people suspected of having participated in the sabotage of a Russian military plane last month at an airfield near Minsk.
The Kremlin refused to comment on this subject, but Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko admitted that an A-50, a Russian radar plane, had been targeted, ensuring however that the device had not been "heavily damaged".
He claimed that the main suspect was acting on behalf of Ukraine. The spokesman for Ukrainian diplomacy, Oleg Nikolenko, denied, denouncing "a new attempt to create an artificial threat" against Belarus.
07/03/2023 17:47:40 - Kiev (Ukraine) (AFP) © 2023 AFP
