The United States announced $400 million in new military aid to Ukraine on Friday, during German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s visit to Washington, which was an opportunity to reiterate Western support for Kiev.
On the ground, the Russian paramilitary group Wagner claimed to have “virtually surrounded” Bakhmout, a symbolic city of the east, and called on President Volodymyr Zelensky to sound the withdrawal of his troops.
Western military aid to Ukraine has been crucial in enabling Kiev to withstand Russian troop assaults and even regain ground, but the Kremlin has said such aid would only ‘prolong the conflict and have sad consequences for the Ukrainian people”.
Washington ignored this warning and announced new aid, including ammunition, notably for the Himars rocket system that Ukrainian forces used with devastating effect against Russian troops and supply lines.
President Joe Biden welcomed Mr. Scholz to the White House for his first trip to Washington since the invasion of Russia.
When they last met, “Russia was gathering its troops” at the border, Biden told reporters, adding that Western countries had promised to respond and “together we delivered on that promise.”
In response, Mr Scholz said it was important to send a message to Ukraine that “we will continue to support (the) as long as necessary.”
In another show of support for Ukraine, US Attorney General Merrick Garland paid a surprise visit to the country on Friday to attend a justice and war crimes conference.
“He reaffirmed our determination to hold Russia accountable for the crimes committed during its unjust and unprovoked invasion against its sovereign neighbor,” a Justice Ministry official said.
During this conference which was held in Lviv, in western Ukraine, the Ukrainian public prosecutor also announced the forthcoming opening in Kiev of an office of the International Criminal Court.
The battle for Bakhmout, an industrial city whose strategic importance is disputed, has been going on since the summer. The city has become a symbol, as it has been the epicenter of fighting between Russians and Ukrainians for months.
In recent weeks, Russian forces have advanced, cutting off three of four Ukrainian supply routes and making the position of the defenders increasingly precarious.
“Wagner’s units have practically surrounded Bakhmout, there is only one road left” to get out, Wagner boss Evgeny Prigojine said on Friday in a video posted on Telegram by his press service.
In combat gear, Mr. Prigozhin called on Mr. Zelensky — who had vowed to defend Bakhmut “as long as possible” — to order Ukrainian troops to withdraw from the city.
“If before we faced a professional Ukrainian army, which was fighting against us, today we see more and more old people and children. They are fighting, but their life in Bakhmout is short, a day or two “, launched Mr. Prigojine. “Give them a chance to leave the city, it’s practically surrounded,” he added.
The video then shows three people, an elderly man and two young people, asking on camera Mr Zelensky to allow them to leave.
The Ukrainian military command on Tuesday admitted an “extremely tense” situation in Bakhmout in the face of a Russian breakthrough attempt.
Mr. Zelensky had for his part noted the same day an increase in the “intensity of the fighting” around the city, which had some 70,000 inhabitants before the war. There are now 4,500 left, according to local authorities.
The Ukrainian general staff gave no details on the situation in Bakhmout on Friday, contenting itself with noting that the army had repelled 85 Russian attacks on the entire front in the past 24 hours.
On Wednesday, the spokesman for the eastern command of the Ukrainian army, Serguiï Tcherevaty, had denied to AFP that a withdrawal from Bakhmout was in progress.
Ukrainian soldiers recently interviewed by AFP on the spot tried, for some, to remain optimistic. Others reported a lack of men, ammunition, and artillery support.
West of Bakhmout, the death toll of the Russian attack on a building in the city of Zaporizhia, hit by a missile on the night of Wednesday to Thursday, has increased to seven dead, according to the emergency services Ukrainians in the region.
Wagner’s threats come the day after an incident in the Russian region of Briansk, bordering Ukraine, an incident that Moscow presented as an incursion by Ukrainian “saboteurs”.
According to the Russian security services, this group opened fire on a car, killing two civilians and injuring a child in the village of Lioubetchané, located just on the border with Ukraine.
The Ukrainian presidency denied these allegations, seeing in them a “deliberate provocation” which aims, according to it, to justify the invasion that Moscow has been carrying out for more than a year.
In two videos posted on social networks, the authenticity of which AFP could not verify, four men in fatigues, presenting themselves as members of a group of “Russian volunteers” within the Ukrainian army, claimed responsibility for this infiltration.
Russian and Ukrainian media have recognized one of these men as Denis Nikitin, a Russian neo-Nazi who has lived in Ukraine for several years.
04/03/2023 02:23:56 – Washington (AFP) – © 2023 AFP