Zelenksy said that six apartment buildings were damaged in the blast and rescue efforts were continuing. ![]() Meanwhile, one Russian missile struck an apartment building in the center of Kramatorsk on Tuesday, killing at least one person and wounding three others in one of Ukraine's major city strongholds in its eastern Donetsk region, officials said. 'We could lose here everything we wanted to use for those counter-offensives.' Ukraine was suffering losses among reserves it intended to use for a later push against Russian forces, Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said in an interview. Ukraine, which has decided to defend Bakhmut rather than withdraw, says wearing out Russia's military now will help its counter-offensive later.īut not every military analyst is convinced that defending Bakhmut is the best strategy for Ukraine. Russia says taking Bakhmut would open a path to capture all of Donetsk, a central war aim. Ukrainian forces repelled attacks on seven settlements in the Bakhmut front, it added. Russia launched five missile attacks, 35 air strikes and 76 attacks with heavy rocket salvo systems over the past day, including on civilian infrastructure in the Sumy and Donetsk regions, Ukraine's military said early on Tuesday. 'It is very tough in the east - very painful,' Zelensky said in a Monday video address. 'We have to destroy the enemy's military power. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine's future hinges on the outcome of battles in the east, including in and around Bakhmut, with both sides describing brutal fighting as Russia intensifies a winter campaign to capture the small city.īakhmut has become the focus of Russia's invasion, with the months-long fight becoming Europe's bloodiest infantry battle since the Second World War. In a forest some 5 miles from the front, cannons boomed and explosions rumbled constantly in the distance. On the battlefront, Ukrainian soldiers said on Monday they were repelling attacks near Kreminna, north of Bakhmut. 'This has almost certainly been a key reason why no Russian formation has recently been able to generate operationally significant offensive action,' the MoD said in its latest intelligence briefing. The UK's Ministry of Defence today said that Russian ammunition shortages have 'worsened to the extent that extremely punitive shell-rationing is in force on many parts of the front'. 'It is sad that the number of exhibits of military museums will be reduced,' said one report. Some of the tanks being revamped at the 103rd Plant may be 60 years old, dating from the time Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev were ruling the USSR. The drive to retrofit the decades-old tanks highlights the desperation of Putin's military machine - while Ukraine is being supplied with the most modern Western tanks. Heavy losses on the battlefields has also forced Putin to desperately empty Russian museums of obsolete tanks to repurpose them for his flailing war effort.įootage shows ageing Soviet-era T-62s being 'modernised' in a round-the-clock factory in Chita, Siberia. ![]() However, the reports suggest females are now being deployed, although their precise role is unknown. Several hundred women in prisons in the Sverdlovsk region - in the Ural District - asked local MP Vyacheslav Wegner to send them to Ukraine, it was reported. 'It is also known that they are sent to the territory of the Russian Federation for training,' the Ukrainian general staff said. Some had been recruited from a women's penal colony in Snezhnoye, a city in the occupied Donetsk region. This was to 'compensate for losses in personnel'. Last month the Ukrainian general staff said that Russia was actively 'trying to recruit convicted women to participate in the hostilities'. However, there is now evidence that the Russian defence ministry is directly signing up convicts. This has seen murderers, rapists and other violent criminals released and ultimately freed by Putin, with most convicts serving with the Wagner private army.īut Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed last month that his group will no longer recruit prisoners to fight in Ukraine - without providing an explanation as to why. Male prisoners have been recruited in Russia in their tens of thousands and offered a deal which cancels their sentences if they serve - and stay alive - for six months on the frontline. Olga Romanova, of Russian Behind Bars foundation, believes around 100 women were sent to Ukraine.
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