Representative Photo- AP
Kyiv: With the Western allies pledged to ramp up military aid to better arm Kyiv as it prepares for a counter-offensive, Russia claimed that it had broken through two fortified defence lines in Ukraine’s east.
After Russian forces launched operations in multiple areas, NATO described the fight over eastern Ukraine as a “grinding war of attrition”.
Things are happening, but … we need to step up even more because there is a big need out there to provide Ukraine with ammunition,” NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg told reporters after a two-day meeting of alliance defence ministers in Brussels.
Ukraine has received billions of dollars in military aid, with the United States committing more than $27.4 billion in security assistance since the conflict began.
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell urged countries to join Germany in sending tanks.
Britain said it and other European nations would provide military equipment including spare parts for tanks and artillery ammunition via an international fund, with an initial package worth more than $241 million.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Ukraine had a very good chance of taking and “exploiting” the initiative on the battlefield this year.
Bolstered by tens of thousands of reservists drafted in December, Russia has intensified attacks across southern and eastern Ukraine in recent weeks, and a major new offensive is widely expected as the first anniversary of its invasion nears.
“The enemy’s offensive continues in the east, (with) round-the-clock attacks,” Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar said.
“The situation is tense. But our fighters are not allowing the enemy to achieve their goals and are inflicting very serious losses,” she wrote on the Telegram messaging app on Wednesday.
Earlier, the Russian Defence Ministry said Ukrainian forces had retreated in the face of Russian operations in the Luhansk region, although it gave no details and Reuters was not able to verify this and other battlefield reports.”During the offensive … the Ukrainian troops randomly retreated to a distance of up to 3 km (2 miles) from the previously occupied lines,” the ministry said on Telegram.
“Even the more fortified second line of defence of the enemy could not hold the breakthrough of the Russian military.”
The ministry did not specify in which part of Luhansk the offensive took place. The Luhansk and Donetsk regions make up the Donbas, Ukraine’s industrial heartland, now partially occupied by Russia which wants full control. In Kyiv, the capital’s military administration said six Russian balloons that may have contained reconnaissance equipment were shot down after air raid sirens blared.
Russia’s main effort has been an artillery and ground onslaught on the city of Bakhmut, in Donetsk. Russian forces have launched attacks on several settlements, including Paraskoviivka on the northern approaches to Bakhmut, over the past day, Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said.
Russian attempts to advance on two other settlements north of Bakhmut were repelled, he added in a YouTube video.
“Things are very difficult for our forces there as Russian troops are being sent into the area en masse,” Zhdanov said.
Maksym Zhorin, a military analyst and former commander, told Ukrainian Radio NV that the Russians were attacking Opytne and Klishchiivka, villages on the southern approaches to Bakhmut.
There was also heavy fighting in Krasna Hora, to the north of Bakhmut, where the Ukrainians had suffered losses, he added.
“The city can be supplied and the injured can be evacuated. We can maintain our defence for a long time yet,” he said.
With inputs from agencies.
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