Zelensky visits troops on war’s 300th day
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has visited Bakhmut, as the war enters its 300th day. Photo: AAP
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has made a surprise trip to troops in the battered eastern frontline city of Bakhmut, underlining Russia’s stuttering but persistent attempts to capture it.
In contrast, Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded medals inside the comfort of the Kremlin to the Russian-appointed leaders of four regions of Ukraine that Moscow has claimed to have annexed since invading its neighbour on February 24.
President Zelensky, in his Tuesday night video address, referred to his trip to “Fortress Bakhmut” in Donetsk, one of the provinces Russia claimed in September but most countries reject as illegal occupation.
He said he passed through several towns in Donetsk region including Sloviansk, Kramatorsk and Kostyantynivka, which have long been cited as possible Russian targets.
“Please support our Bakhmut – tattered but unconquered – and its defenders,” President Zelensky said.
The most destructive fighting in recent weeks has taken place around Bakhmut, where Zelenskiy, dressed in combat khaki, handed out medals to soldiers in a tumble-down industrial complex to loud applause, video released by his office showed.
With the boom of artillery audible in the distance, he urged them to keep up their spirits as the battle for Bakhmut, one that has come to symbolise the grinding brutality of the war, enters its fifth month.
“The East is holding out because Bakhmut is fighting. In fierce battles and at the cost of many lives, freedom is being defended here for all of us,” President Zelensky wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Earlier, he repeated calls to the West for more weaponry including air defence systems after Russian drones hit energy targets in a third air strike on power facilities in six days.
A US government funding bill in the Senate included $US44.9 billion ($67.4 billion) in emergency assistance to Ukraine and NATO allies. The money would be used for military training, equipment, logistics and intelligence support, as well as for replenishing US equipment sent to the government in Kyiv.
The World Bank on Tuesday said it had approved an additional financing package totalling $US610 million ($916 million) to address urgent relief and recovery needs in Ukraine.
President Putin told Russia’s security services they needed to significantly improve their work, one of his clearest public admissions yet that the invasion was not going to plan.
He acknowledged problems for Russian forces in parts of Ukraine.
“The situation in the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions is extremely difficult,” Mr Putin said in a video address to security workers translated by Reuters.
Mr Putin’s address followed a visit to close ally Belarus that stoked fears, dismissed by the Kremlin, that Russia’s fellow former Soviet republic could help it open a new invasion front against Ukraine, where fighting has been concentrated hundreds of kilometres away in the east and south of the country.
In another move on the 300th day of his invasion, Mr Putin ordered the FSB, the country’s primary security agency, to step up surveillance of Russian society and borders to combat the “emergence of new threats” from abroad and traitors at home.
Western countries have imposed unprecedented sanctions on Russia and the rouble slumped to a more than seven-month low against the dollar on Tuesday after the European Union agreed to cap prices of natural gas, a major Russian export.
In Washington, a senior US State Department official told reporters there were conflicting views in Russia on what the next steps in Ukraine should be, with some seeking new offensives and others doubting Russia’s capacity to wage them.
Russian air attacks on the Ukrainian power grid, which Kyiv says are aimed at civilians to break their will to resist, have repeatedly cut power and water supplies amid sub-zero winter cold.
The conflict in Ukraine has killed tens of thousands of people, driven millions from their homes and reduced cities to ruins, with no end in sight.
– AAP