Russia claims major advances in Ukraine

Russia claims major advances in Ukraine as it eyes its biggest territorial prize since the summer, with the West split over warplanes: UK and US rule out supplying jets

Moscow claimed it had taken Blahodatne, found three miles north of Bakhmut
Russia is desperately trying to take Bakhmut and seize the whole of the Donbas

Russia on Tuesday claimed it had made major advances in Ukraine and captured a village on the northern outskirts of Bakhmut, which has been the focus of some of the fiercest fighting since the war began.

Moscow, which is attempting to surround the city in a big push for what would be its biggest prize in Ukraine since last summer, claimed it had captured the village of Blahodatne. Kyiv said it had been able to repel an attack on a nearby main road.

It came three days after the head of Russia’s Wagner Group said the mercenary force had seized the village in an attack Kyiv said it had repelled.

The claim came as both the UK and the US expressed their reluctance to send Kyiv fighter jets, amid fears that doing so would result in Russia dramatically escalating the war, and as Ukraine said it expected the delivery of between 120 and 140 tanks.

Russia on Tuesday claimed it had made major advances in Ukraine and captured the village of Blahodatne on the northern outskirts of Bakhmut. Pictured: Ukrainian BMP-2 infantry combat vehicles drive in a convoy down an icy road in the Donetsk region on January 30, 2023

Both the UK and the US expressed their reluctance to send Kyiv fighter jets, amid fears that doing so would result in Russia dramatically escalating the war. Pictured: A F-16 fighter jet launches a missile (file photo)

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Britain said on Tuesday that it would not supply Ukraine with its RAF Typhoon and F-35 fighters because it would take too long to train the country’s pilots, while US President Joe Biden ruled out sending F-16 fighters on Monday.

France said later on Tuesday that it had discussed training Ukrainian fighter pilots to fly French fighter jets, but no decision had been taken yet. Poland also refused to rule out the possibility of sending F-16s to its embattled neighbour.

As Kyiv has pushed for the supply of more western weaponry, Moscow and the Wagner mercenary group has made clear, if gradual, advances around Bakhmut – notably capturing the salt-mining town of Soledar to the city’s north.

Were Putin’s armies to force Ukraine to withdraw from the city that once held 75,000 people, it would be Moscow’s first big prize since it took the similarly-sized cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk in July.

Blahodatne, which sits on one of the main roads into Bakhmut, about 3 miles north, was captured with the help of aerial support, Moscow’s defence ministry said.

But while Russia claimed it had taken the town, Ukraine said Russian troops had been unable to cut off the road leading from the town Chasiv Yar to Bakhmut.

‘Russian troops could not cut off the road which is used for supplying the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The Ukrainian army in Bakhmut is supplied with everything necessary,’ military spokesperson Serhiy Cherevaty said in televised comments.

He said Bakhmut remained one of the main focuses of Russian attacks, including artillery strikes and infantry assaults.

During the fighting for Bakhmut, two civilians, a boy and a 70 year-old-man, were killed in a Russian artillery attack on Tuesday, regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said. Four others were wounded in the attack, he said.

Separately, a large Russian force has launched an assault against the Ukrainian-held bastion of Vuhledar this week, further south along the same eastern front.

Russian officials have claimed to have gained a foothold there, while Kyiv says it has largely repelled that attack so far.

Britain’s Ministry of Defence said the Russian force in the new Vuhledar assault was at least the size of a brigade, a unit typically comprising several thousand troops.

The Russians had advanced hundreds of metres across a river toward Vuhledar and could make more localised gains there, the ministry said in an unusually detailed daily intelligence update.

It said the assault on Vuhledar was unlikely to lead to a significant breakthrough, but could be intended to draw Ukrainian effort away from defending Bakhmut.

Despite weeks of intense trench warfare that both sides have compared to a meat grinder, frontlines in eastern Ukraine had largely been frozen in place since November after Kyiv recaptured swathes of territory in the second half of 2022.

But momentum has lately swung back towards Russia, making substantial gains for the first time since the middle of last year.

Military experts say Moscow appears determined to push forward in the coming months before Kyiv receives hundreds of newly pledged Western tanks and armoured vehicles for a counter-attack to recapture occupied territory this year.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy described Russia’s assault in the east as an attempt to exact ‘revenge’ for earlier losses.

‘And I think that they will not be able to provide their society with any convincing positive result in the offensive. I am confident in our army. We will stop them all, little by little, destroy them and prepare our big counteroffensive,’ he said on Monday.

Kyiv says the Russian assaults of recent weeks have come at huge cost, initially mostly relying on Wagner mercenaries, including thousands of convicts recruited from Russian prisons and sent into battle in waves with little training or equipment.

But Russia’s call-up of hundreds of thousands of reservists late last year means Moscow has now been able to reconstitute regular military units exhausted or depleted earlier in the war.

Western military experts say Bakhmut is not by itself of major strategic importance.

But it is is one of just a handful of substantial cities in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region that are still under Ukrainian control, and Moscow now says capturing the full Donbas is a main objective of the ‘special military operation’.

A Ukrainian serviceman looks through a blown-out wall, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine January 27, 2023. The city has seen weeks of intense trench warfare that both sides have compared to a meat grinder

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Since winning the Western pledge for tanks after months of lobbying, Kyiv has pressed on with further requests for arms, including calls for jet fighters such as U.S. F-16s. Neither side has been able to secure control of the skies over Ukraine.

The West has so far refused to send weapons that could be used to attack deep inside Russia, a line countries still seem unwilling to cross.

US President Joe Biden responded with a flat ‘No’ when asked by reporters at the White House on Monday if Washington would send F-16s.

Still, Ukraine has held out hope. Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov was due in Paris on Tuesday to meet President Emmanuel Macron, who told reporters in The Hague on Monday that ‘nothing is excluded’ when it comes to military assistance.

Macron said any move to send jets would depend on factors including the need to avoid escalation and assurances the aircraft would not ‘touch Russian soil’.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki also did not rule out a possible supply of F-16s to neighbouring Ukraine, in response to a question from a reporter before Biden spoke.

Morawiecki said in remarks posted on his website that any such transfer would take place ‘in complete coordination’ with NATO. Poland has long pushed for more aggressive military support for Ukraine.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s spokesperson said on Tuesday London did not believe its own jets would be useful.

‘The UK’s … fighter jets are extremely sophisticated and take months to learn how to fly. Given that, we believe it is not practical to send those jets into Ukraine,’ the spokesperson told reporters.

A wreckage of a far car is seen under a pile of debris in Bakhmut, Ukraine on January 28, 2023

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Meanwhile, Ukraine said on Tuesday it is expecting to receive between 120 and 140 heavy tanks after its Western allies agreed to supply Kyiv.

The number is less than half of what Kyiv has said it needs, with Ukraine’s commander in chief saying last year that his military would require 300 tanks – along with hundreds more pieces of equipment – to win the war in a matter of months.

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the 120 to 140 modern battle tanks would be made up of three different Western models: the German-made Leopard 2, the British Challenger 2, and the Ameircan M1 Abrams.

Kyiv is also hoping to be sent the French-made Leclerc tanks as well.

Speaking on Tuesday, Kuleba said twelve countries have so far agreed to send tanks to help Ukraine in its fight against Vladimir Putin’s invaders.

Intelligence suggests the Kremlin is plotting another major offensive with the goal of capturing Kyiv and overthrowing the government in the Spring, and could coincide with February 24, which will mark the one year anniversary of Putin’s 2022 invasion.

‘Ukraine’s armed forces will receive between 120 and 140 modern Western tanks,’ Kuleba told reporters, describing the figure as the ‘first wave of contributions.’

‘These are Leopard 2, Challenger 2, M1 Abrams,’ Kuleba said, without specifying a timeline for the deliveries. ‘We are very much counting on the Leclerc, too,’ he said, referring to the French battle tank.

Ukraine’s most senior diplomat also said that Kyiv was in negotiations to receive Western fighter jets and long-range missiles.

‘These are not weapons of escalation,’ he said. ‘These are weapons of defence and deterrence of the aggressor.’

After weeks of diplomatic wrangling, the US and Germany announced last week the deliveries of their heavy Abrams and Leopard tanks to Ukraine, a step seen as a breakthrough in efforts to support Ukraine.

Speaking in December, commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces Valery Zaluzhny said to ‘get to the lines’ by February 23 (in other words, for the Ukrainian military to retake all the territory held by Ukraine before the invasion) Kyiv would need 300 tanks as well as 600 to 700 infantry fighting vehicles and 500 howitzers.

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