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Ukrainian fighters fire at Russian positions near Bakhmut
Photo:
ARIS MESSINIS / AFP
That says Kyiv
According to information from Kiev, the Russian military continues to suffer enormously high losses in the battle for the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, which has been going on for months.
"Russian losses amount to up to 500 dead and wounded every day," Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Resnikov told Bild am Sonntag.
The Russian soldiers are merely “cannon fodder” in the “meat grinder tactics” used by Moscow.
Bakhmut is a "symbolic place" for Moscow, which is why the efforts to capture the city are so great.
Even their capture means nothing for the further course of the fighting in Donbass.
The Ukrainian General Staff reported again on Saturday evening that the Russian military's attempts to encircle the city had been "unsuccessful".
But the losses on the Ukrainian side are also considered high.
A few months ago, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Bakhmut described it as a "fortress" that will not be given up, but the city's fall is now being considered as a possibility in Kiev.
But the Ukraine wants to hold on to the positions for as long as possible, also because the Russian troops lose a lot of time and energy trying to counter them.
Information on the loss figures cannot be verified independently.
Read here what Russian volunteers have found out so far during their search in cemeteries, in archives or on the Internet: The dead that Putin is hiding
The Russian mercenary unit Wagner is particularly active in Bakhmut and around the city.
Their boss, the oligarch Yevgeny Prigoshin, who is considered close to the Kremlin, has recruited men for the troops in Russian prisons in the past.
It is precisely among these prisoners that the casualties are said to be extremely high.
The human rights organization "Russia behind bars" recently said that of the 50,000 mercenaries recruited in prisons, only 10,000 are still at the front.
The rest were killed, wounded, captured or deserted.
The city itself, which once had 74,000 inhabitants, is now largely destroyed.
According to estimates by the authorities, only about 5,000 civilians still live in Bakhmut.
That says Russia
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev reacted aggressively to Rheinmetall's proposal to build a tank factory in Ukraine.
The initiative is probably a kind of "primitive trolling" against the state leadership in Kiev, he wrote on his Telegram channel on Saturday.
»But if the Fritzen decide to actually build there (although they are actually pragmatic people), then we will eagerly await.
The event will be marked with a proper salute from "Kalibr" and other pyrotechnic devices."
Kalibr are cruise missiles that are primarily launched from ships.
The Russian Black Sea Fleet has used it extensively in recent months to shell Ukrainian power plants.
Medvedev, who was seen as a rather liberal representative of the Russian authorities during his tenure from 2008 to 2012, has been trying to present himself as a hardliner with sharp rhetoric against the West and the political leadership in Kiev since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression.
Observers suspect that he wants to position himself for a possible successor to Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin.
International voices
On the sidelines of a visit to the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, urged an increase in arms deliveries to the Ukrainian armed forces.
"Member States should seriously consider sending fighter jets to Ukraine," said the Maltese politician.
She will continue to call for all the equipment Ukraine needs for victory to be provided.
Latvia's head of government also spoke out in favor of the delivery of fighter jets to Ukraine.
Krišjānis Kariņš told SPIEGEL: »I don't see why the West shouldn't be supplying fighter jets.
If the Ukrainians need fighter jets, they should get them.« The delivery of fighter jets is »only a matter of time«.
Meanwhile, President Zelensky would like to significantly expand cooperation with the European institutions in the current year and eventually lead his country into the EU.
He cites Russia's war of aggression as an argument, not as an obstacle.
"The task is to actively prepare everything for our country's membership in the European Union, increase arms supplies to Ukraine and strengthen sanctions against Russia," Zelenskyy said in his nightly video message.
sak/dpa/Reuters