The Russian advance in the Donbass puts the kyiv troops in an “extremely difficult situation”

They have broken through two Ukrainian defense lines in the Donbass and are “making it difficult” for kyiv. That was the announcement of the Russian Defense Ministry on Wednesday, which also maintained that its attacks have forced the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces in the Lugansk region.

“The situation at the front, especially in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, remains extremely difficult. It is literally fighting for every meter of Ukrainian land,” Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky said in his daily address.

The mobilization of tens of thousands of Russian reservist soldiers in December is beginning to bear fruit. According to UK Defense Minister Ben Wallace, Russia has committed 97% of its Army to the Ukrainian front.

“During the offensive (…) Ukrainian troops randomly withdrew at a distance of up to 3 kilometers from the previously occupied lines,” the Russian Defense Ministry said on social media.

And it is a claim that the Ukrainian authorities have not denied. In fact, they have recognized that the Russian offensive is making things very difficult at the front.

“The enemy offensive continues in the east. The attacks are constant. The situation is tense. Yes, it is difficult for ours. You can see for yourself what kind of war Russia is waging,” said Hanna Malyar, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister. , through the Telegram application.

One of the points most affected by this offensive is Bakhmut, in the Donetsk region, a key city for which Ukraine and Russia have been mired in a battle of attrition for months.

“In Bakhmut, there is a fight at every corner, on every staircase,” Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner group, said a few weeks ago.

And it seems that the situation remains the same, but with an advantage for Russia, which captured a nearby city a few days ago. If they manage to take over Bakhmut, Russia would have the door open to capture other important cities in the region such as Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. And something more important on a symbolic level: he would have a victory to celebrate on the first anniversary of the war, on February 24.

At the same time, Ukraine also has a plan: it is preparing a counter-offensive for spring and, to do so, it is asking for all possible weapons from the West.

NATO, aimed at increasing weapons production

As Ukrainians fight on the battlefield, defense ministers from NATO member countries held talks in Brussels for the second and final day of a brief summit to agree more support for Kiev’s troops.

At the end of the meeting, the Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, indicated that the Alliance countries will increase the production of weapons at a time when Ukrainian troops fire up to 10,000 artillery shells daily.

“We have to continue, we have to intensify our effort even more. This is turning into a war of attrition and a war of logistics,” Stoltenberg told reporters.

Stoltenberg asked the Alliance nations for greater investment in defense, exceeding the 2% of annual GDP agreed so far, a measure for which a response is expected in July, when the member countries meet again in Lithuania.

For his part, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius stressed that 48 Leopard 2 tanks will be sent to kyiv, although he did not specify a specific date.

Josep Borrell, the top diplomat of the European Union, asked the countries to join the initiative of Poland and Germany and to send the “greatest possible number of tanks” to Ukraine. In a clear allusion to countries like Denmark or the Netherlands, which have already said that they do not intend to send Leopard 2 to the Ukrainian front.

In addition to tanks, kyiv’s western partners are expected to send 155mm artillery ammunition.

For its part, Kiev assures that it needs all the weapons that the West can provide with the same rhetoric it has used since the start of the war: “now it is Ukraine, but later it could be other European countries that are attacked by Moscow.”

“Send your tanks to Ukraine now so you don’t have to deal with Russian tanks later,” the Ukrainian government posted in a tweet on January 17.

Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said Ukraine still needs a few months to prepare for the counterattack, planned for spring. However, he assured that his troops are well equipped.

“Ukraine is prepared to stop the Russians, but the more weapons it has, the better,” Reznikov said.

And it is that, in the current situation, Ukraine is going to need all the help possible if it wants to stop the Russian advance.

With Reuters and EFE