Ukraine has decided to fight on in the ruined city of Bakhmut because the battle is pinning down Russia’s best units and degrading them ahead of a planned Ukrainian spring counter-offensive, according to an aide to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Key points:
- Russia made Bakhmut the main target of a winter push involving hundreds of thousands of fighters
- The head of the Wagner private militia said Moscow was failing to provide enough ammunition
- There has also been speculation that Russia may be running short on missiles
Russian forces must go through Bakhmut to push deeper into parts of the Donetsk province they do not yet control, though Western officials say that capture of the city is unlikely to change the course of the war.
Kyiv, which had seemed at the start of March to be planning to withdraw westward, announced this week that its generals had decided to reinforce Bakhmut and fight on.
“Russia has changed tactics,” Zelenskyy aide Mykhailo Podolyak said in an interview published by Italy’s La Stampa newspaper.
“It has converged on Bakhmut with a large part of its trained military personnel, the remnants of its professional army, as well as the private companies.”
“We, therefore, have two objectives: to reduce their capable personnel as much as possible, and to fix them in a few key wearisome battles, to disrupt their offensive and concentrate our resources elsewhere, for the spring counter-offensive. So, today Bakhmut is completely effective, even exceeding its key tasks.”
The comments by Mr Podolyak were the latest signal of a shift by Kyiv this week to continue the defence of the small eastern city, site of the war’s bloodiest battle, as Moscow tries to secure its first major victory in more than half a year.
Russia has made Bakhmut the main target of a winter push involving hundreds of thousands of reservists and mercenaries.
It has captured the eastern part of the city and outskirts to the north and south, but has so far failed to close a ring around Ukrainian defenders.
Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said that, as Russia pressed its offensive, “our soldiers are doing everything possible to prevent the enemy implementing their plans”.
Questions over ammunition supplies
Russia’s advances have appeared to slow amid highly public complaints from Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner private militia leading Russia’s assault, that the military command was failing to provide his men with enough ammunition.
Mr Prigozhin on Friday thanked the government publicly for a “heroic” increase in output, but in the same audio message said he was “worried about ammunition and shell shortages not only for Wagner … but for all units of the Russian army”.
He said his men had been “blown away” by the fact they had started to receive ammunition deliveries labelled as produced in 2023, but said ammunition was now being produced “in huge quantities, which cover all the necessary needs”.
Mr Prigozhin also said Wagner, which had taken heavy losses in fighting for Bakhmut, had opened recruitment centres in 42 Russian cities.
“In spite of the colossal resistance of the Ukrainian armed forces, we will go forward. Despite the sticks in the wheels that are thrown at us at every step, we will overcome this together,” he said.
There has also been speculation that Russia may be running short on missiles.
On Thursday, Russia fired hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of missiles across Ukraine, including an unprecedented six of its hypersonic Kinzhal (‘Dagger’) missiles, touted as a super weapon to which NATO has no answer.
It is believed to possess only a few dozen Kinzhals.
It had been three weeks since the last similar Russian attack, the longest lull since such strikes began in October.
Previously, Moscow had been unleashing such attacks roughly every week, challenging Ukraine’s ability to repair infrastructure before the next onslaught.
Britain’s Ministry of Defence said on Friday the reason for the longer lull was probably that Moscow was running out of missiles.
“The interval between waves of strikes is probably growing because Russia now needs to stockpile a critical mass of newly produced missiles directly from industry before it can resource a strike big enough to credibly overwhelm Ukrainian air defences,” it said.
US says intelligence shows Russia stirring unrest in Moldova
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said people with ties to Russian intelligence are seeking to stage and use protests in Moldova as a basis to foment an insurrection against Moldova’s new pro-Western government.
Mr Kirby said the intelligence showed that another set of Russian actors would provide training and help manufacture demonstrations in Moldova, which was granted European Union candidate status in June, on the same day as Ukraine, its war-torn neighbour.
The publicising of the alleged malign operation by Moscow in Moldova is just the latest example of the Biden administration loosening restrictions on and making public intelligence findings over the course of the grinding war in Ukraine.
The administration has said it wanted to highlight plans for Russian misinformation and other activity so allies remained clear-eyed about Moscow’s intent and Russia thought twice before carrying out an operation.
“As Moldova continues to integrate with Europe, we believe Russia is pursuing options to weaken the Moldovan government probably with the eventual goal of seeing a more Russian-friendly administration in the capital,” Mr Kirby said.
Mr Kirby also pointed to recent efforts by Russia that he said were intended to sow disinformation about Moldova’s overall stability.
He pointed specifically to the Russian Ministry of Defense’s claim last month that Ukraine had been planning to invade Transnistria, Moldova’s Moscow-backed separatist region.
In recent weeks, several anti-government protests have been held in the capital, Chisinau, organised by a group calling itself Movement for the People and supported by members of Moldova’s Russia-friendly Shor Party, which holds six seats in the country’s 101-seat legislature. A protest is also planned by the group on Sunday.
Shor Party leader Ilan Shor is a Moldovan oligarch currently in exile in Israel.
The Shor Party also organised a series of anti-government protests last fall, which rocked Moldova as it struggled to manage a severe energy crisis after Moscow slashed natural gas supplies.
Around the same time, Moldova’s government asked the country’s Constitutional Court to declare the Shor Party illegal, while anti-corruption prosecutors alleged that the protests were partly financed with Russian money.
Once part of the Soviet Union, Moldova declared its independence in 1991.
Zelenskyy pays tribute to ‘Hero of Ukraine’
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy led tributes on Friday to Dmytro Kotsiubailo, a renowned commander known as “Da Vinci” who won public affection for committing his entire adult life to fighting Russia and its proxies.
The 27-year-old, whose unit is called Da Vinci’s Wolves, was killed this week in Bakhmut.
Mr Zelenskyy appeared with visiting Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin at the ornate, golden-domed St Michael’s Cathedral in central Kyiv to lay flowers on Mr Kotsiubailo’s coffin.
“It hurts to lose our heroes. Brave, courageous, strong. Loyal to themselves and to the state,” Mr Zelenskyy said on the Telegram app.
“I handed over to Oksana Kotsiubailo, Da Vinci’s mother, the Cross of Military Merit, which her son was posthumously awarded. We will never forget. And we will always be grateful.”
Later, hundreds of people gathered in the nearby Independence Square, a symbol of Ukraine’s attempts to prise itself from Russia’s sphere of influence and move closer to the European Union.
Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov and General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, head of Ukraine’s armed forces, were among the dignitaries to pay their respects on the square.
Mr Kotsiubailo was made a “Hero of Ukraine” by Mr Zelenskyy in 2022, before Russia’s full-scale invasion, for his role in fighting pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine since the start of the armed conflict in 2014.
Linked with the right-wing movement Right Sector, he is one of several figures from nationalist groups, some of which took part in a 2014 uprising that toppled Ukraine’s pro-Russian president, whose reputations have grown in the past year.
Critics say the groups’ radicalism and history of violence have helped Russian media to portray them as “neo-Nazis” who threaten Russian-speakers living in Ukraine.
ABC/wires