The fall has never been so close for the city of Bakhmout. In eastern Ukraine, the city has been at the heart of fighting for months, threatened with encirclement by the Russian army and the paramilitary group Wagner. It could fall “in the next few days,” NATO’s Secretary General warned on Wednesday. “We cannot rule out that Bakhmut will finally fall in the next few days,” military alliance boss Jens Stoltenberg said on the sidelines of a meeting of European defense ministers in Stockholm.
The fall of the city, which the Russian paramilitary group Wagner claimed on Wednesday to capture the eastern part of, would leave “the way clear” for the Russian army in eastern Ukraine, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The Secretary General of NATO has minimized the strategic importance of the ruined city of Donbass, which Russia has sworn to conquer despite heavy losses. “It doesn’t necessarily reflect any turning point in the war,” Jens Stoltenberg told reporters. “But it underlines that we should not underestimate Russia. We must continue to support Ukraine. »
According to Moscow, the capture of the city would allow “new offensive operations in depth”. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky assured, in an interview with American television CNN broadcast on Wednesday, that his troops were determined to hold out in the city. If Bakhmout falls, the Russians “could go further. They could go to Kramatorsk, they could go to Sloviansk, the way would be clear,” he warned.
Meeting in Stockholm with Jens Stoltenberg and their Ukrainian counterpart, the defense ministers of the European Union are refining on Wednesday a plan for deliveries to Ukraine of shells and ammunition, despite stocks under pressure. A first emergency component worth one billion euros is planned, in the face of the crying need of the Ukrainian army for artillery shells. “It is now a war of attrition, which is a battle of logistics”, underlined the Secretary General of NATO, welcoming the efforts of the EU. The current gap between the rate of ammunition use and production “is not sustainable, so we need to increase the rate of production.”
