UKRAINE: Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukraine’s president, said that Poland would help create a coalition of Western powers to send warplanes to Kyiv as his troops defended their eastern stronghold of Bakhmut against relentless Russian assaults.
During a visit to Warsaw on Wednesday, Zelenskiy stated that Poland had a significant role to play in convincing Western allies to send battle tanks to Ukraine, and he thought it could have a similar impact on a “planes coalition.”
The Polish government stated it would send 10 additional MiG fighter aircraft in addition to the four already supplied, but neither the United States nor Ukraine’s other major military backers have agreed to send the F-16 fighters Kyiv has requested.
On the front lines, Zelenskiy stated that the fight for Bakhmut presented challenging circumstances for Ukrainian troops and that the armed forces would make “corresponding” choices to defend them if they ran the risk of being surrounded by Russian forces.
“We are in Bakhmut, and the enemy does not control it,” said Zelenskiy, denying claims by Russian soldiers that they had taken the city, which was in ruins from months of bombardment and attritional warfare.
“For me, keeping our people alive is important. Of course, if there is a time when things become further hotter, and there is a chance we could lose personnel due to encirclement, generals will make the appropriate judgements,” Zelenskiy stated, ostensibly referring to a withdrawal.
The military of Ukraine stated in an early Thursday update that Russian forces were storming Bakhmut with the aim of gaining complete control of it, adding that Bakhmut was “the epicentre of hostilities” along with the towns of Avdiivka and Maryinka to the southwest.
One of the bloodiest battles of Russia’s incursion, now in its fourteenth month, was fought for Bakhmut, one of the last urban centres in eastern Donetsk Province still to fall to Russia.
Ukrainian military leaders have emphasised the significance of holding Bakhmut and other towns and inflicting losses on them prior to an anticipated counteroffensive against Russian forces in the upcoming weeks or months.
Vladyslav Selezniov, a military expert from Ukraine, predicted that Ukrainian forces would be able to hold positions in the more densely populated west of Bakhmut as long as their route to the west, known as the “road of life” for transporting supplies and injured people out, stayed open.
The Russian Wagner private militia’s mercenaries, as per the American Institute for the Study of War, would attempt to take over the city’s core and advance through crowded urban areas to the west.
Hasten the end of Ukraine-Russia conflict
Ursula von der Leyen, the European Union’s executive head, and Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, are anticipated to discuss Ukraine during talks with Xi Jinping, China’s president, in Beijing on Thursday.
Prior to the trip, Macron agreed in a phone conversation with Joe Biden, the U.S. President, to engage Beijing to hasten the end of the biggest conflict in Europe since World War 2.
Macron and von der Leyen have stated that they hope to convince China to use its sway over Russia to bring about peace or, at the very least, dissuade Beijing from actively aiding Moscow in the conflict.
Although Beijing has denied this, the U.S. and NATO have claimed that China is contemplating sending weapons to Russia.
Despite the fact that the Chinese and Russian presidents declared a “no limits” partnership just before the invasion, China has called for a general ceasefire and characterised its stance on the conflict as “impartial.”
Andrzej Duda, the president of Poland, stated that Warsaw was attempting to obtain additional security guarantees for Ukraine at the July NATO meeting in Lithuania.
In addition to MiG-29s, Ukraine has pushed NATO for F-16 jet fighters, but Marcin Przydacz, Duda’s foreign policy adviser, said Poland would not make a decision on whether to dispatch any anytime soon.
Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister of Russia, said on state television that Moscow must keep relations with Washington, although American weapons supplies to Ukraine indicate that “we are really in a hot phase of the war.”
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