No imminent sign of Ukraine retreat from Bakhmut, says analyst
A prominent Ukrainian military analyst said late on Saturday that he could not detect any immediate signs that Kyiv was going to order a retreat from the besieged city of Bakhmut.
Oleh Zhdanov said in a YouTube interview:
At the moment the situation is more or less stabilised. In terms of the advancement of Russian troops, we practically stopped [it].
Reuters also reported that Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, thanked defenders in Bakhmut in a video message on Saturday but gave no details of the fighting.
Russian artillery have been pounding the last routes out of Bakhmut while trying to complete the encirclement of the besieged city and bring Moscow closer to its first major victory in the Ukraine war in six months.
The Ukrainian armed forces’ general staff said late on Saturday that it had repelled Russian attacks in the villages of Vasyukivka, Orikhovo-Vasylivka, Dubovo-Vasylivka and Hryhorivka, all of which are just north of Bakhmut’s city centre.
Key events
Turkish foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said on Sunday that Ankara is working hard to extend a UN-backed initiative that has enabled Ukraine to export grain from ports blockaded by Russia following its invasion.
The Black Sea Grain Initiative brokered by the United Nations and Turkey last July allowed grain to be exported from three Ukrainian ports.
The agreement was extended in November and will expire on 18 March unless an extension is agreed, Reuters reports.
“We are working hard for the smooth implementation and further extension of the Black Sea grain deal,” Çavuşoğlu said in a speech at the United Nations Conference on Least Developed Countries in Doha, Qatar.
Çavuşoğlu also said he discussed the extension efforts with UN secretary general António Guterres.
On Wednesday, Russia said it would only agree to extend the Black Sea grain deal if the interests of its agricultural producers are taken into account.
Top commanders of what Moscow calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine have briefed Russia’s defence minister on the current situation and action plans, his ministry said on Sunday.
Sergei Shoigu paid a rare visit to Russia’s forces deployed in Ukraine, awarding medals to military personnel and meeting senior commanders during the trip, according to a statement and videos issued by the Russian defence ministry on Saturday, Reuters reported.
The minister held a meeting with commanders of the operation, the ministry said on the Telegram messaging platform on Sunday. It did not specify if the meeting took place during the trip.
It said:
Sergei Shoigu paid special attention to the set-up of all the necessary conditions for the safe deployment of personnel in the field, the organisation of comprehensive support for the troops, especially the work of medical and rear units.
Russia’s top military chiefs have visited the frontlines in Ukraine only occasionally since Moscow invaded in February last year.
Two Ukrainian pilots are in Arizona to fly flight simulators and be evaluated by the US military, two US officials say, as Washington remains mute on whether it will send fighter jets or sophisticated remotely piloted drones to Kyiv.
Reuters reports that the US and other western allies have been flooding Ukraine with weapons from Javelin missiles to Himars rocket launchers but have not yet pledged sophisticated jets and the largest armed drones.
The Arizona “familiarisation event” was a first and would facilitate dialogue between Ukrainian and US personnel and provide an opportunity to observe how the US air force operates, a US defence official said on Saturday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
This event allows us to better help Ukrainian pilots become more effective pilots and better advise them on how to develop their own capabilities.
No imminent sign of Ukraine retreat from Bakhmut, says analyst
A prominent Ukrainian military analyst said late on Saturday that he could not detect any immediate signs that Kyiv was going to order a retreat from the besieged city of Bakhmut.
Oleh Zhdanov said in a YouTube interview:
At the moment the situation is more or less stabilised. In terms of the advancement of Russian troops, we practically stopped [it].
Reuters also reported that Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, thanked defenders in Bakhmut in a video message on Saturday but gave no details of the fighting.
Russian artillery have been pounding the last routes out of Bakhmut while trying to complete the encirclement of the besieged city and bring Moscow closer to its first major victory in the Ukraine war in six months.
The Ukrainian armed forces’ general staff said late on Saturday that it had repelled Russian attacks in the villages of Vasyukivka, Orikhovo-Vasylivka, Dubovo-Vasylivka and Hryhorivka, all of which are just north of Bakhmut’s city centre.
Opening summary
Hello and welcome back to our live coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine – this is Adam Fulton bringing you the latest developments.
The Ukraine military says Russian troops are trying but failing to surround Bakhmut. Troops had repelled numerous attacks in and around the besieged city in eastern Ukraine, the armed forces’ general staff said in a Facebook post late on Saturday.
Bakhmut’s deputy mayor, Oleksandr Marchenko, told BBC radio there was fighting in its streets but Russian forces “still haven’t taken control over the city”.
Russian artillery is reported to be pounding the last routes out of Bakhmut, aiming to block Ukrainian forces’ access and complete an encirclement of the city. The UK Ministry of Defence said Ukrainian resupply routes were becoming “increasingly limited”.
A woman was killed and two men were badly wounded in Bakhmut by shelling while trying to cross a makeshift bridge out of the city on Saturday, according to Ukrainian troops assisting them.
In other developments:
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The death toll has risen to 11 from a Russian missile strike that hit a five-storey apartment block in southern Ukraine on Thursday, Ukraine’s emergency services said on Saturday.
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Ukraine has ordered a mandatory evacuation of families and vulnerable residents from the frontline city of Kupiansk and adjacent north-eastern territories. The evacuation order was due to the “unstable security situation” caused by Russia’s constant shelling of the town and its surroundings, it said. Russian troops retreated from key cities in the north-eastern Kharkiv region, including Kupiansk, and Ukraine recaptured it last September.
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Gen Sir Richard Shirreff, Nato’s former deputy supreme allied commander Europe, has urged speeding up the supply of equipment and support to Ukraine to give the Ukrainians “the tools they need to do the job”,
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The Russian defence minister paid a rare visit to Moscow’s forces in Ukraine. In a statement on Telegram, Russia’s defence ministry said Sergei Shoigu “inspected the forward command post of one of the formations of the eastern military district in the south Donetsk direction”.
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The president of the European parliament, Roberta Metsola, has called for Ukraine to be allowed to begin EU membership negotiations this year, during a visit to the country on Saturday. She was “hopeful” the talks could starts this year, she said.
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Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov’s description of the Russian invasion as “the war, which we are trying to stop, and which was launched against us using the Ukrainian people” was met with laughter at an event in New Delhi, India.
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Marjorie Taylor Greene, an influential far-right Republican in Congress, has called for the US to stop aid to Ukraine, saying President Joe Biden was “putting the entire world at risk of world war three”.
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