military of Ukraine called on March 5 that it had repelled more than 130 enemy attacks in 24 hours and claimed to be inflicting massive Russian casualties, but gave no precise word on the fate of Bakhmut, where Russian forces are said to have nearly surrounded the devastated city.
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Kyiv has tried to stress the toll in casualties it has inflicted on the Russian side amid attrition offensives, including Moscow’s ongoing effort to encircle and capture Bakhmut in the eastern Donetsk region.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, meanwhile, tried to highlight Kiev’s preparations and Western support for early EU accession as another aspect of continued international support for Ukrainians defending their country from the unprovoked, large-scale Russian invasion that began a year ago.
Zelenskyy said after meeting the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, at an event in western Ukraine partly devoted to Russian war crimes: “The task is to actively prepare everything for our country’s membership in the European Union, which increase arms sales to Ukraine and tighten sanctions against Russia Russia.”
In his regular daily report Early on March 5, the Ukrainian General Staff cited Russian offensives towards Bakhmut, Avdiyivka, Lyman and Shakhtar in Donetsk, as well as further north at Kupyan in the Kharkiv region.
It also said it killed 930 Russian troops in the previous 24 hours of combat.
Both sides in the fighting classify their casualty numbers, and RFE/RL cannot independently confirm casualty or other battlefield reports from either side.
Serhiy Cherevaty, a spokesman for Ukraine’s Eastern Group of Forces, told CNN on March 4 that their soldiers were still controlling Bakhmut.
“There is also no mass withdrawal of Ukrainian troops,” said Cherevaty.
Only one road leading away from Bakhmut is said to have been open, as what Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin called the “pincers” was closed, and reports suggested that the few thousand residents living in the town who had around 70,000 inhabitants before the war, remaining inhabitants were forced to flee on foot.
Moscow, meanwhile, tried to exude confidence with a second claim in as many days after a visit to the front lines by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, though his exact whereabouts were impossible to confirm.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Shoigu met with army commanders in the war zone to get an update on the situation.
An accompanying video showed Shoigu with Russia’s supreme commander, General Valery Gerasimov, and a deputy, General Sergei Surovikin.
Amid reports of battlefield setbacks since the invasion began, but particularly in recent months, Shoigu has come under increasing pressure from pro-war advocates in Russia, including Wagner chief Prigozhin, for the military’s performance.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said March 4 Shoigu had visited near the front lines of eastern Ukraine, without specifying the location.
Kiev has acknowledged the dire situation surrounding Bakhmut’s defenses but is said to have still swapped troops, while Western military experts said the situation there was critical amid “increasing pressure”.
“In the direction of Bakhmut, the enemy has not given up trying to encircle the city of Bakhmut,” the General Staff said early on March 5.
Western pundits have questioned Russia’s push for Bakhmut, saying it was less strategic and more symbolic value for the Kremlin.
Ukraine’s general staff said the Russians had lost more than 153,000 troops by its count since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
US and other western officials recently estimated that the total number of casualties on the Russian side – including dead and wounded – is approaching 200,000.
Moscow has conceded “significant” casualties, but most recently reported cumulative casualties through September of less than 6,000.
A spokesman for Ukraine’s Air Force on March 5 advocated the delivery of modern Western aircraft, particularly the US-designed F-16s, amid a growing threat from Russian guided missiles, glide bombs and modified bombs that “can fly tens of kilometers”. to meet their goals.
The speaker, Yuriy Ignat, called in TV comments that such planes could also help the Ukrainian armed forces “drive out” the Russian planes firing such weapons.