KIEV, March 28 (Reuters) – Russian forces are advancing on the shattered eastern Ukrainian town of Bakhmut, a Moscow-based official said on Tuesday, but British intelligence said a Russian tank division had suffered heavy losses. in the nearby town of Avdiivka. .
The battle for Bakhmut, a mining town in the Donetsk region, has been the focus of Moscow’s war in Ukraine for months, with both sides describing the fighting there as a “meat grinder.”
Denis Pushilin, the Russian-installed leader of the part of the Donetsk region under Moscow’s control, said most of the Ukrainian forces were forced to withdraw from the AZOM metal works on the western side of the Bakhmutka river in the city.
“The important thing here was to clear the industrial zone at the plant itself. You can practically say that it has already been done, with the guys taking down the (Ukrainian) fighters who are only left in lone groups,” Pushilin told Russia. state television.
His claims ran counter to Ukrainian and Western claims that the situation in Bakhmut is stabilizing and that Russia’s winter offensive is failing.
Ukrainian military commanders have said their own counteroffensive, backed by newly delivered Western hardware including German Leopard 2 tanks, is not far off, but they have stressed the importance of keeping Bakhmut in the meantime.
Russian forces have also been shelling Avdiivka, 90 km (55 miles) south of Bakhmut, making it, according to a Ukrainian official, “a place of”post apocalyptic movies“. Many civilians have already been evacuated.
In its daily update on the war in Ukraine on Tuesday, Britain’s Defense Ministry said Russian forces had made only “marginal progress” in an attempt to encircle Avdiivka in recent days and had lost many armored vehicles and tanks. .
Russia’s 10th Tank Regiment, which took part in the Avdiivka operation, was beset by problems of poor discipline and low morale, and “probably lost a large proportion of its tanks,” he said.
In another sign of the pressure Moscow is facing, Russia said on Tuesday that for the first time it had shot down a US-supplied GLSDB smart guided bomb fired by Ukrainian forces.
The small-diameter ground-launched bomb, long sought by kyiv to hit Russian command centers and supply lines, could double Ukraine’s firing range.
Separately, Ukrainian forces reported repelling 62 Russian attacks on the Eastern Front over the past 24 hours.
Reuters was unable to verify the reports from the battlefield.
TACTICAL NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion, now in its 14th month, has stalled for months in eastern Ukraine.
In warning the West against continuing to arm Ukraine, Putin and other Russian officials have increasingly exaggerated the risks of using nuclear weapons in war. On Saturday Putin said he had reached an agreement to tactical nuclear weapons station in neighboring Belarus, an ally of Moscow.
The Belarusian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that it had agreed host nuclear weapons to protect themselves after years of “unprecedented pressure” from the West. He said the move does not contravene international non-proliferation agreements.
Ukraine and its western allies have denounced The plan.
Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Tuesday that Belarus face more European sanctions for the plan.
Putin’s war has devastated Ukrainian cities and towns, killing thousands and forcing millions more to flee their homes, while sharply raising global food and energy prices and exacerbating tensions. Worldwide.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Tuesday that its navy had fired supersonic anti-ship missiles at a simulated target in an exercise in the Sea of Japan, prompting Tokyo, a key Western ally, to warn of increased Russian military activity in the Far East region.
France will double its supplies of 155mm shells to Ukraine to about 2,000 a month, its defense minister said on Tuesday. Ukraine has said these projectiles are critical to its war effort.
Russian Energy Minister Nikolai Shulginov said the Ukrainian drone strikes pose a serious threat to Russia’s key energy infrastructure. Moscow says it has thwarted several attempted drone strikes by Ukraine in recent months.
Ukraine has not publicly acknowledged attacking targets inside Russia.
‘GEOPOLITICAL BLACKMAIL’
Russia launched a total of 15 Iranian-made Shahed drones overnight into Ukraine, the Ukrainian military said early Tuesday, adding that its forces had destroyed 14 of them.
“The logic of the Russians’ actions is terror targeting civilian infrastructure,” Ukrainian presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak said on Telegram about the drone strikes.
“It won’t work, just like geopolitical blackmail.”
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in his late-night video speech on Monday, accused Russian troops of taking the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant “hostage” and said their safety could not be guaranteed until they abandoned it.
Russian troops have occupied the nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, since the first weeks of the invasion of Ukraine and have shown no inclination to cede control.
“Holding a nuclear power plant hostage for more than a year is without a doubt the worst thing that has happened in the history of European or world nuclear power,” Zelenskiy said, denouncing the Russian presence as “radiation blackmail.”
His comments followed a meeting with Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), at the Dnipro hydroelectric power station, northeast of the Zaporizhzhia plant.
Russia and Ukraine regularly accuse each other of bombing the Zaporizhzhia plant. Grossi has repeatedly asked for a security zone around him and is scheduled to visit again this week.
Zelenskiy visited the southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia on Monday, the latest leg of a tour of frontline regions since a top general said Ukraine’s counterattack could come soon.
Reporting from Reuters bureaus Ron Popeski and Elaine Monaghan; Written by Gareth Jones; Edited by Peter Graff
Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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