Russian troops are continuing their efforts to encircle the symbolic city of Bakhmout, the epicenter of the war in eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian army said on Sunday March 5, however claiming to have repelled new attacks. The battle for Bakhmout, an industrial city whose strategic importance is disputed, has been going on since the summer.
Separately, the German arms group Rheinmetall is holding “promising” talks with Kiev over the construction in Ukraine of a factory to manufacture tanks, which the country needs to repel the Russian invasion, its chairman said in a statement. interview published on Saturday.
Russian army still trying to encircle Bakhmout, kyiv says
In its daily report, the Ukrainian General Staff said that “more than 130 enemy attacks” had been hindered in the past 24 hours, in several sectors of the front, in particular in Kupiansk, Lyman, Bakhmout and Avdiïvka. “The enemy continues its attempts to encircle the city of Bakhmout,” he continued, without further details. Villages north and west of Bakhmout were attacked, Serhii Tcherevatyi, spokesman for the Eastern Grouping of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, told CNN on Saturday. Earlier in the day, he said the situation in Bakhmout was “difficult but under control”.
The paramilitary group Wagner, on the front line in Bakhmout, assured Friday that it had “virtually surrounded” the city and called on President Volodymyr Zelensky to order the withdrawal of its troops. On Saturday, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a group of American experts, acknowledged that Russian forces had captured positions in Bakhmout that could allow them to bypass some Ukrainian defenses. “The Russians could try to encircle the Ukrainian forces in Bakhmout, but the Ukrainian command gave the signal that it preferred to withdraw rather than risk an encirclement”, estimates this source.
Estonians elect their parliament, Ukraine in the background
Estonians began voting this Sunday to elect their new parliament in a poll that could bolster far-right nationalists, a party that has campaigned on opposition to further arms shipments to Ukraine. Prime Minister Kaja Kallas’s centre-right Reform Party is expected to win this election, according to most polls released this week, but it will likely need to form a coalition to stay in power. According to these polls, he would obtain between 24% and 30% of the vote, while the far-right EKRE party is credited with 14% to 25% of the vote.
Estonia, a country of 1.3 million people bordering Russia, has a unicameral parliament with 101 seats, all at stake in Sunday’s vote. The Baltic country, a member of the European Union and NATO, took the lead in international calls last year for increased military aid to Ukraine in the face of Russia’s invasion. Estonian military aid to Ukraine currently amounts to more than 1% of its GDP, the largest contribution of any country relative to the size of their economy.
According to the leader of the far-right EKRE party, Martin Helme, Estonia should “not further aggravate tensions” with Moscow. EKRE campaigned against further military aid to Kyiv and called for no more Ukrainian refugees to be accepted and to reduce immigration to protect Estonian workers. Put off by the Estonian government’s bellicose stance towards Russia, many Russian speakers, who represent a quarter of the population, are likely to choose to abstain in Sunday’s legislative elections, even if they are opposed to the war in Ukraine.
Rheinmetall in talks to build tank factory in Ukraine
“A Rheinmetall factory can be built in Ukraine for around 200 million euros” with the aim of producing up to 400 Panther-type combat tanks per year, said its president Armin Papperger in an interview with the newspaper. Rheinische Post released on Saturday. The boss of the group said he expected a decision “within the next two months”. The production unit could “without difficulty” be protected from Russian attacks via anti-aircraft defense systems, he said.
Former President and number two of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev has already threatened to celebrate the eventual opening of the plant “as it should be with a salvo of (Russian missiles) Kalibr and others pyrotechnic devices”, in a message on his Telegram account. According to the head of Rheinmetall, Ukraine needs 600 to 800 tanks to win against Russian forces, hence the need to quickly produce new tanks. “Even if Germany made the Bundeswehr’s 300 Leopard 2 tanks available (to Ukraine), that would be clearly insufficient,” he said.