Ukrainian soldiers fighting to hold off a Russian push on the small eastern city of Bakhmut pleaded for more weapons from the outside world as senior Western leaders met in Munich on Friday to assess the year-long war shaking Europe.
โGive us more military equipment, more weapons, and we will deal with the Russian occupier, we will destroy them,โ said Dmytro, a serviceman standing in the snow near Bakhmut which Russiaโs Wagner mercenary group is attacking.
Nearly one year into the invasion, President Vladimir Putinโs troops are intensifying assaults in the east.
Ukraine is planning a spring counter-offensive, for which it wants more, heavier and longer-range weapons from its Western allies.
Europeโs worst conflict since World War Two war has killed tens of thousands, uprooted millions from their homes, pummelled the global economy and made Putin a pariah in the West.
He says he is fighting for Russiaโs security against an aggressively expanding NATO alliance, but Kyiv and its allies cast the invasion as a colonial-style land grab in Ukraine, formerly part of the Russian-dominated Soviet Union.
On the freezing battlefield, Ukrainian servicemen showed a visiting journalist the benefits of Australian-provided Bushmaster armoured vehicles in an area where Russian soldiers have become bogged down in months of fighting to take Bakhmut.
The vehicles shield soldiers from bullets, enable evacuations of wounded and give cover for reconnaissance, Dmytro added. โThere were cases when anti-tank mines were detonated, and the soldiers only received contusions. There were no serious injuries to the soldiers. It has worked very well.โ
The governor of Luhansk, one of two provinces in what is known as the Donbas which Russia partially controls and wants to take completely, said ground and air attacks were increasing.
โToday it is rather difficult on all directions,โ Serhiy Haidai told local TV. โThere are constant attempts to break through our defence lines,โ he said of fighting near the city of Kreminna.
In its latest update, Russia said a barrage of missile strikes on Thursday around Ukraine had achieved their goals in hitting facilities providing fuel and ammunition to President President Volodymyr Zelenskiyโs army.
Kyiv reported 36 missiles, of which 16 were shot down, and said its largest oil refinery, Kremenchuk, was struck.
โAMERICAN WARMONGERSโ
Attending the three-day Munich Security Conference were a host of senior Western officials including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris.
At last yearโs gathering, they had urged Putin not to invade and warned of dire consequences if he did. This year, they are grappling with the consequences of that.
As well as the pressing problem of the war, the Cold War-style standoff with Russia has revived huge wider security issues for Europe: how much to rely on the United States, how to much to spend on defence, how to build its own capacity.
Kyiv said only a full Russian exit was acceptable.
โNegotiations can begin when Russia withdraws its troops from the territory of Ukraine. Other options only give Russia time to regroup forces and resume hostilities at any moment,โ presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak wrote on Twitter.
Moscow accuses the United States of inciting Ukraine to escalate the war and now being directly involved.
โThe American warmongers โฆ supply weapons in huge quantities, provide intelligence and participate directly in the planning of combat operations,โ said Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian foreign ministry.
Russiaโs current focus is on Bakhmut, a now largely shattered city in Donetsk province โ adjacent to Luhansk โ whose pre-war population of about 70,000 people have mainly fled.
The Ukrainian 80th Air Assault Brigadeโs press officer, Taras Dzioba, said the Russians had paid a heavy price after waves of assaults around the city.
โThere are places where their bodies are just piled up. There is a trench โฆ They just donโt evacuate their wounded or killed,โ Dzioba said near a howitzer battery outside a defensive bunker.
Capturing Bakhmut would give Russia a stepping stone to advance on two bigger cities further west, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. But Ukraine and allies say it would be a pyrrhic victory given the time taken and losses sustained.
