Russia on Monday ruled out any new mobilization to swell its troops, after the departure of the men of the paramilitary group Wagner from Ukraine, where Kiev reported “fierce fighting” in four areas of the front line while claiming to have progressed in South.
“The President of the Russian Federation (Vladimir Putin) has clearly, understandably and specifically said that there will be no new mobilization,” Andrei Kartapolov told state agency TASS on Monday. the head of the Defense Committee of the Duma, the lower house of the Russian Parliament.
“There is no need for mobilization today and in the near future,” he added, stating that “there is no threat at all of diminished combat potential” in the medium and long term, and that Moscow has manpower within the Russian armed forces to replace them.
On June 13, a few days before the mutiny of the paramilitary group, Mr. Putin had himself dismissed the idea of ??a new mobilization: “there is no such need today”, he had declared to journalists, according to the Kremlin website.
After his abortive mutiny in Russia in June, the boss of the Wagner group, Evguéni Prigojine, agreed to go into exile in Belarus thanks to mediation led by Minsk, an ally of Moscow.
Under this agreement, Wagner’s fighters have the choice of going to Belarus, returning to civilian life, or enlisting in the regular Russian army.
Mr. Prigojine assured that his uprising was not intended to overthrow power, but to save Wagner from being dismantled by the Russian general staff, which he accuses of incompetence in the conflict in Ukraine.
According to Kiev, Russian forces advanced Sunday in four areas of the front line in the east, but Ukraine assured that its troops were advancing in the south, about a month after the launch of their counter-offensive.
“The enemy is concentrating its efforts in the areas of Lyman, Bakhmout, Avdiivka and Mariinka, intense fighting is underway,” the Ukrainian General Staff said in its regular report on Monday.
During the night from Sunday to Monday, Moscow attacked Ukraine using Iranian Shahed missiles and drones, the same source added, without providing details of any damage or casualties.
“There is fierce fighting everywhere”, “the situation is quite difficult”, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Ganna Maliar wrote on Telegram on Sunday.
Ukrainian troops are “constantly and tirelessly working to create the conditions for as rapid an advance as possible”, she added.
Last Tuesday, a Russian strike against a restaurant in Kramatorsk, in eastern Ukraine, seriously injured around 60 people, including the writer Victoria Amelina. The Ukrainian author died on Saturday, announced the Ukrainian branch of the international NGO Pen Club, bringing the death toll from the bombing to 13.
In the industrial suburb of Donetsk, the town of Avdiivka is shelled an average of 30 times a day, according to the military administration. Although there is no longer an intact building, no more water or electricity, 1,719 inhabitants still live there, the majority of whom are elderly people who mainly take refuge in an underground shelter.
“At home you wonder if a bomb will hit or not – it’s like Russian roulette,” Pavel, 65, told AFP.
“In recent months, there has not been a day without air strikes or rockets,” Vitaliy Barabach, the head of the military administration, told AFP.
Faced with Russian strikes, Ukraine says it is continuing its counter-offensive launched about a month ago and which has so far failed to trigger a decisive advance It urges its Western allies to hasten the promised military aid , approaching a NATO summit in Vilnius.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, receiving Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Saturday, criticized Kiev’s Western partners on the pace of training Ukrainian airmen, accustomed to Soviet MiGs and Sukhoi, in piloting F-16s. .
“There is no training mission schedule. I think some partners are dragging their feet. Why are they doing it? I don’t know,” he said.
US Chief of Staff Mark Milley, from Washington, replied that the United States and its allies are doing their best to send what Ukraine needs.
In the field of grain exports, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations said he saw “no reason” to extend the agreement which allows Ukrainian exports despite the conflict, and which is due to expire in July.
For Gennady Gatilov, the agreement reached in July 2022 has turned away from its humanitarian aims to become “a commercial project”, mainly supplying “high-income countries”, he said in an interview with Russian media Izvestia. released on Monday.
And the corridors “are regularly used by Ukrainians to launch military drones”, added the diplomat.
“What we see today gives us no reason to accept the continuation of the status quo.”
On June 21, Kiev said it was not “very optimistic” about a possible renewal of the agreement, after Moscow had once again threatened to withdraw from it, believing that certain clauses were not respected.
07/03/2023 08:55:48 – Moscow (AFP) – © 2023 AFP