Ukraine’s top military leaders are determined to face the Russian attack in Bakhmut, President Voldoymyr Zelenskyy said.
He discussed Bakhmut with the military command, who told him they were unanimously in favor of defending the eastern sector, which includes Bakhmut.
“There was a clear position of the entire General Staff: reinforce this sector and inflict maximum damage on the occupier,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address.
Bakhmut has been the scene of months of intense fighting with Russia, which has been pushing to take control of territory in Ukraine’s Donetsk province.
Though it would provide a stepping stone for Russia to advance into two major Donetsk cities, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, many analysts have repeatedly said it has little strategic value.
“I think it’s more of a symbolic value than a strategic and operational value,” US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said earlier this month.
However, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the supreme commander of the Ukrainian armed forces, disagrees.
“The defensive operation in (Bakhmut) is of the utmost strategic importance in deterring the enemy. It is the key to the stability of the defense of the entire front line,” he said during the meeting with Zelenskyy.
Ukrainian and Russian casualties mount in battle for Bakhmut
This browser does not support the video element.
Here are some of the other notable developments regarding the war on Wednesday March 15:
Reports on the use of white phosphorus in eastern Ukraine
Journalists from the French news agency AFP said they saw white phosphorus shells being fired from Russian positions at an uninhabited area near Khasiv Yar in eastern Ukraine.
They said the projectiles caused explosions that released flaming bullets of white phosphorus and set vegetation on fire.
Reporters could not say for sure what was attacked but said a green truck with a white cross, a symbol of the Ukrainian army, was parked nearby.
There were also civilians a few hundred yards away.
The use of phosphorus weapons against civilians is prohibited, but they can be used against military targets under a convention signed in Geneva in 1980.
Ukraine has repeatedly accused Russia of using these weapons. However, the Russian army categorically denied this.
Bill Browder calls on DW Welt to cut off Russia’s money
More needs to be done to stop Russia from accessing funds to finance its war, British investor and prominent critic of President Vladimir Putin Bill Browder told DW.
“We need to completely and absolutely stop the flow of money into Russia, and that means stopping buying oil and gas,” Browder said.
Browder said there should be an embargo on Russia and action should be taken on countries that don’t cooperate.
“We should say if you do business with Russia, we will not do business with you.”
Browder said countries like Turkey, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia that are not “superpower economies” must bow to the line.
“Russia has to lose and be seen as a loser,” Browder told DW.
“If that should happen, then we have a situation in which we can move on to a peaceful future in Europe.”
Browder: “Starving” Putin to Wage War
This browser does not support the video element.
Putin successfully used the war in Ukraine to “consolidate his power,” says a Russia expert
Angela Stent, a Russia expert and author of an award-winning book on President Vladimir Putin, told DW that the Russian head of state used the war “to consolidate his power.”
Although a million people left Russia, the majority who stayed are likely to “either support the war or be somewhat indifferent to it.”
“So far, he seems to have managed to convince them that the West is actually trying to crush Russia and that this is a fight for their existence,” Stent said.
As for Putin’s game plan waiting to tire the West, Stent said, “He’s playing a long game.”
“His experience so far has taught him that the West doesn’t stick together forever, that democracies get sidetracked. They have elections. They have to do other things.”
More DW coverage of the war in Ukraine
The United States said one of its military surveillance drones crashed into the Black Sea after being intercepted by Russian warplanes. The Pentagon said one of the Russian Su-27 jets struck the drone’s propeller, rendering it inoperable. Russia regards the drone incident as a provocation.
Bundeswehr Commissioner Eva Högl said that Berlin is working too slowly to build up the Bundeswehr. Högl, whose task it is to ensure parliamentary control of the armed forces, presented her report against the background of the “turnaround” announced by Chancellor Olaf Scholz last year in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The commissioner called for additional funding to be made available to the armed forces, beyond the €100 billion already made available as part of a one-off fund.
lo/rt (AFP, AP, dpa, Portal)