The Ukrainian side said that Russia’s missiles bombed Ukraine on the 16th and attacked the country’s largest oil refinery. Meanwhile, the head of the mercenary group Wagner Group predicted that the long-besieged Bahmut would fall within months.
Following some battlefield or diplomatic victories for Ukraine, Russia fired a further 36 missiles in the early hours of the day following a heavy bombing pattern, the Ukrainian Air Force said.
The missiles set off air defense sirens and landed across Ukraine, including at the Kremenchug oil refinery, where the extent of the damage was unclear.
The Ukrainian Air Force added that about 16 missiles were shot down.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense tweeted that “the terrorist state has launched another large-scale missile attack on Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure.” Ukraine said the missile attack included three KH-31 missiles and an Oniks anti-ship missile. cruise missiles, which Ukrainian air defenses cannot shoot down.
Meanwhile, Belarus, which allowed Russia to use its territory to send troops to Ukraine at the start of the war, has said it will fight alongside its Russian ally only if it is under attack.
Backed by tens of thousands of reservists, Russia has stepped up its ground assault on southern and eastern Ukraine. As the one-year anniversary of Russia’s military campaign against Ukraine (February 24) approaches, a new major offensive appears to be taking shape.
focus on bachmut
Russia’s current focus is on the small city of Bakhmut in Donetsk. Donetsk is one of two regions that make up Ukraine’s industrial heartland, Donbass, which is currently partly occupied by Russia.
Russia has been striking and trying to surround Bahmut for months amid the fighting led by Wagner’s group. The region had a pre-war population of nearly 70,000, but most of them have left, leaving Ukrainian soldiers to hold their ground.
Capturing Bakhmut would pave the way for Russian advances into two larger cities west of Donetsk, Kramatorsk and Slavyansk. But Ukraine and its allies say the capture of Bakhmut will be costly for Russia, as the process has lasted for months and the Russian military has suffered huge losses.
Evgeny Prigozin, head of the Wagner Group, predicted in an interview with a pro-war military blog that Bakhmut would fall in April, depending on how many Ukrainians went into the fight and how much his troops received. availability.
“To capture Bahmut, all supply lines must be cut. This is a major task,” he said, adding that “the progress is not as fast as we would like.”
He noted that “Bahmut would have been captured before the New Year if it hadn’t been for our horrible military bureaucracy.”
Prigozin has previously accused the Russian military of trying to “steal” victory from the Wagner Group, a sign of the Wagner Group’s growing influence and a dangerous rift in Moscow.
This is not the first time Prigozin has criticized the Russian leadership, Samuel Ramani, an associate research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, told Al Jazeera.
“I don’t think it’s surprising that Prigozin attacked the Russian leadership in this way,” Ramani said.
“Russia wanted to win, but Yevgeny Prigozin didn’t,” Ramani said.
With Ukraine rapidly depleting ammunition and demanding more firepower, including tanks and fighter jets, NATO members are ramping up military production and will pledge more at this week’s meeting in Brussels.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s military has received massive amounts of aid. The United States alone has pledged $27.4 billion in aid to Ukraine since Russia launched military operations against Ukraine last February.
Russia called it a “special military operation” in response to a security threat and cited the delivery of heavy weapons to Ukraine as evidence the West was escalating the war.
Ukraine and its allies see Russia’s military action as a war of aggression.
In Brussels, diplomats said EU countries were “progressing well” and would impose a 10th package of economic sanctions on Moscow on the first anniversary of the “invasion”, according to Reuters.