Monitoring Desk
KYIV: Ukraine’s future hinges on the outcome of battles in the eastern parts, including in and around Bakhmut city, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, with both countries describing brutal fighting as Russia intensifies offensives to capture the small city.
Bakhmut has become the focus of the Russian invasion, with the months-long fight becoming Europe’s bloodiest military battle since World War Two.
“It is very tough in the east and very painful,” Zelenskyy said in his overnight video address.
“We have to destroy the military power of our enemy. And we must destroy it.”
Moscow and Kyiv gave differing accounts of talks to extend the Black Sea grain deal, agreed last year to prevent a global food crisis by securing wartime exports from Russia and Ukraine, both among the world’s top food suppliers.
The grain deal, brokered by the United Nations and Turkey, will expire this week. Russia said the deal had been extended for 60 days, but Ukraine said the agreement required an extension to last four months. Turkey said negotiations were still ongoing.
In the first international war crimes cases concerning the Russian invasion, the International Criminal Court (ICC) is likely to seek the arrest of Russian government officials for forcibly deporting children from Ukraine and destroying civilian infrastructure.
The Kremlin said the International Criminal Court has no jurisdiction over Russia.
Moscow would be sure to reject arrest warrants against its officials, but an international war crimes prosecution could deepen Russia’s diplomatic isolation over a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of civilians and displaced millions from their homes.
Ukrainian forces resisting attacks on Bakhmut
On Monday, Ukrainian soldiers said they were repelling attacks near Kreminna, north of Bakhmut city.
In a forest nearly 8 kilometers (5 miles) from the front, cannons boomed, and explosions constantly rumbled in the distance.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the front in the Volnovakha region, a Russian-controlled village to the south, a woman’s body lay on the street next to a ruined shop. A Russian military investigator told Reuters the Ukrainian shelling had struck the area.
Trench warfare, described by both countries as a meat grinder, has claimed a massive toll in Bakhmut, with both sides reporting hundreds of enemy troops killed each day. Neither side gives regular figures for its casualties.
Russia says taking the Bakhmut region would open a path to capture all of the surrounding Donetsk provinces. Ukraine, which has decided to defend Bakhmut city rather than withdraw, says wearing out Russia’s military there now will help its counter-offensive later.
On Tuesday, Britain’s Ministry of Defence said that Moscow was running short of ammunition “to the extent that extremely punitive shell-rationing is in force on many parts of the front.”
