KYIV/LONDON — Ukraine on Monday hailed its first substantial battlefield advances for six months as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy gained pledges of recent long-range drones in Britain so as to add to a haul of Western arms for a counteroffensive towards Russian invaders.
Since final week, the Ukrainian army has began to push Russian forces again in and across the battlefield metropolis of Bakhmut, its first vital offensive operations since its troops recaptured the southern metropolis of Kherson in November.
“The advance of our troops along the Bakhmut direction is the first success of offensive actions in the defense of Bakhmut,” Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, Commander of Ground Forces, mentioned in an announcement on the Telegram messaging app.
“The last few days have shown that we can move forward and destroy the enemy even in such extremely difficult conditions,” he mentioned. “We are fighting with fewer resources than the enemy. At the same time, we are able to ruin its plans.”
The battle for the small jap metropolis has turn into the longest and bloodiest of the warfare and has totemic significance for Russia, which has no different prizes to indicate for a winter marketing campaign that price hundreds of lives.
Over the previous half of a yr, Kyiv has held its troops on the defensive whereas Moscow mounted its marketing campaign, sending a whole lot of hundreds of contemporary reservists and mercenaries into Europe’s bloodiest floor fight since World War Two.
Kyiv is now making ready a counteroffensive utilizing a whole lot of recent tanks and armored autos despatched by Western international locations for the reason that begin of this yr, aiming to recapture the sixth of Ukraine’s territory that Moscow claims to have annexed.
Zelenskiy met British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in London on Monday, the most recent cease in a tour that introduced him to Rome, Berlin and Paris over the previous three days, pocketing main new pledges of weapons alongside the best way.
Britain, which final week grew to become the primary Western nation to supply Ukraine long-range cruise missiles, adopted that up throughout Zelenskiy’s go to on Monday with a pledge of drones that would strike at a variety of 200 km (125 miles).
Sunak’s authorities additionally mentioned it will quickly begin coaching Ukrainian pilots to fly fighter jets, though it will not present planes for Ukraine as Kyiv needs U.S. F-16s which Britain’s air power doesn’t use.
Zelenskiy described the brand new weapons pledged by the Europeans as “important and powerful.” The precedence throughout his talks has been “our counteroffensive actions. I am very pleased with the achievements and agreements,” he mentioned.
Sunak mentioned the warfare was at a “pivotal moment.”
“The UK will remain steadfast in supporting Ukraine and its people to defend itself…it is important for the Kremlin to also know that we are not going away. We are here for the long term.”
The Kremlin, for its half, mentioned it didn’t imagine the added British {hardware} would change the course of the battle.
Fifteen months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of its fellow former Soviet neighbor, Ukraine’s anticipated shift again onto the offensive is a serious turning level.
Ukrainian forces drove Russian troops again from the capital Kyiv a yr in the past, and recaptured floor in two main offensives within the second half of 2022, however have since endured a punishing Russian assault whereas ready for arms to reach.
Ukrainian officers usually give few particulars about their offensive operations whereas they’re below method, however have reported substantial positive factors retaking territory on each the northern and southern outskirts of Bakhmut over the previous seven days.
Moscow has acknowledged retreating north of town, and the pinnacle of the Wagner personal military preventing inside Bakhmut has mentioned Russia’s common forces have fled positions on the northern and southern flanks.
Ukrainian officers painting the preventing in that space as localized advances, quite than the most important counteroffensive push which they are saying has but to get below method.
The public rift between Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin and the commanders of standard Russian forces has deepened over the previous two weeks, with Prigozhin releasing each day audio and video messages denouncing the Russian army brass.
However, each he and the Kremlin dismissed a Washington Post report citing US intelligence leaks that Prigozhin had provided to betray the positions of standard Russian forces in January in return for Kyiv pulling again some troops in Bakhmut. The Post mentioned Ukraine had rejected the provide. Reuters couldn’t corroborate the report. — Reuters
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
