Since October 2022, Russia has been carrying out a campaign of massive bombardments of essential infrastructure in Ukraine in an attempt to deprive the population, in the middle of winter, of electricity and heating.
Moscow is also suspected of preparing a new major offensive at the end of winter or spring, after months of military setbacks and a year after the start of its invasion of Ukraine. It is in the city of Bakhmout that most of the clashes have been taking place for months and where Russian troops have been gaining ground in recent weeks.
Wagner boss plans to take Bakhmout “in March or April”
The head of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner has estimated that Bakhmout, epicenter of the fighting in eastern Ukraine, will not be conquered by Moscow before “March or April”, believing that the slow Russian progress was due to the “monstrous military bureaucracy”. .
“I think it’s March or April. To take Bakhmout, you have to cut off all supply routes,” Yevgeny Prigojine said in a video posted overnight from Wednesday to Thursday on the Telegram channel WarGonzo. “I think we would have taken Bakhmout if it weren’t for this monstrous military bureaucracy, and if we weren’t being put in the way every day,” Yevgeni Prigojine lambasted in another video on the channel. Telegram from its press service.
According to him, the fact that Wagner can no longer recruit prisoners to go to the front in exchange for an amnesty constitutes a “bleed” for his organization. “At some point, the number of units will drop and consequently the volume of tasks we want to perform” too, he added. The private paramilitary organization Wagner has been leading the offensive against Bakhmout for months at the cost of very heavy losses. It recruited large numbers of prisoners to go and fight in Ukraine.
On Wednesday February 15, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukrainian soldiers are “firmly” holding their positions in Bakhmout. “This is the most difficult, the hottest point at the moment,” he said during a press conference in Kiev with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, traveling to the Ukrainian capital. “It’s not easy for our soldiers in the east, but it’s not for nothing that we speak of the ‘Bahmut fortress’. Our fortress is alive”, he continued, paying tribute to the Ukrainian soldiers who “firmly hold” their positions.
New night missile strikes
Ukraine said on Thursday February 16 that it suffered new missile and drone strikes during the night, bombings that killed at least one civilian and destroyed many homes. According to the Air Force, 16 of the 32 missiles launched overnight by Russia from planes and a ship in the Black Sea were shot down. “Unfortunately, there were impacts in the north and west, as well as in the Dnipropetrovsk and Kirovograd regions,” Ukrainian presidential administration chief Andriy Yermak said on Telegram.
The governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Serguiï Lyssak, released images of fire trucks in action in a neighborhood where individual houses were destroyed and damaged. At least one person, a 79-year-old woman, was killed. The governor of the Lviv region (west), Maxime Kozytsky, told him that a strike had hit “essential infrastructure” without causing any casualties. The fire was brought under control.
Ukraine shot down “Russian balloons” over kyiv
Ukraine announced on Wednesday February 15 that it had shot down several “balloons” sent by Russia to test its anti-aircraft defense systems in Kiev, in full international awareness of the use of these spy objects.
“According to preliminary information, half a dozen aerial objects were detected in the airspace of Kyiv […]. They were balloons that move under the influence of the wind,” said the regional military administration of the Ukrainian capital. “It is possible that these objects carried reflective systems and some spy equipment,” said added the same source, assuring that “most” of the balloons had been shot down.The presence of these flying objects caused the triggering of anti-aircraft sirens in the Ukrainian capital, which usually happens when missiles approach.
First visit to kyiv by an Israeli minister since the invasion
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen arrived in kyiv on Thursday morning, the Israeli Foreign Ministry announced. This is the first visit by a minister of the Jewish state to Ukraine since the Russian invasion. “We have stood with the Ukrainian people and Ukraine this past year,” said Eli Cohen, who is due to meet his counterpart Dmytro Kouleba and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on his arrival, according to a statement from the Israeli ministry.
“Today we will raise the Israeli flag at the Israeli Embassy in Kiev, which will resume its activities on a continuous basis with the aim of strengthening relations between the countries”, continues the text.
Since the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Israel has sought to remain neutral in this conflict, in particular because of the presence of the Russian army deployed in neighboring Syria. Israel, which has notably asserted privileged ties with Moscow, the Jewish state with more than a million citizens from the former Soviet Union, has for example not supplied arms to Kiev despite repeated requests of President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Paris and Beijing have “the same objective of contributing to peace”
Emmanuel Macron and the head of Chinese diplomacy Wang Yi expressed Wednesday, during a meeting in Paris, “the same objective of contributing to peace” in Ukraine “in accordance with international law”, declared the Elysée.
The French president received this senior official after meeting in November in Indonesia with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, and before a future visit to China, the principle of which has been stated but the date not yet announced. He does not hide his hope that Beijing, an important ally of Moscow which has not condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine, will put pressure on Russia to return to the “negotiating table”.
Wang Yi also met with French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna. According to a press release from the Quai d’Orsay, both “recalled the attachment of France and China, as permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, to the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Ukraine”. The minister also called on her counterpart “to intensify the pressure on Russia to allow a return to respect for the fundamental principles of the Charter of the United Nations”. Convinced that the “stability” of the world is essential for China, Emmanuel Macron had called in November 2022 on the Chinese president to “unite” their “forces” against this conflict.
Germany will send “half a battalion” of tanks
Germany said Wednesday that it would send to Ukraine “half a battalion” of Leopard 2 combat tanks, or about fifteen armored vehicles, at the end of March, at a time when NATO allies are struggling to collect the tanks promised in Kiev.
“Let’s be clear: we have not reached a battalion, it will be half a battalion,” admitted German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius after a meeting in Brussels. At the end of January 2023, Berlin undertook to make available to Ukraine, along with other countries, around thirty Leopard 2 combat tanks to help kyiv against the Russian offensive.
Boris Pistorius specified that his country would be able to supply “14 Leopard 2 A6 from Germany, plus 3 announced by Portugal”. “I would like to point out that ours will be delivered in the last week of March. That’s for sure,” said the German minister. According to Boris Pistorius, his Ukrainian counterpart Oleksii Resnikov declared himself “satisfied” with the provision of this half-battalion and spoke of an “intermediate stage”.