WESTERN PERSPECTIVE
The founder of Russia's most high-profile mercenary group said on Saturday he wanted his forces and the regular Russian army to capture the small city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine because it possessed "underground cities" that can hold troops and tanks.
Russia's grinding more than five months-long push to try to take Bakhmut has puzzled some Western military analysts who have said that heavy losses incurred on the Russian side and the fact that Ukraine has built defensive lines to fall back to nearby mean any Russian victory there, if it happens, would be pyrrhic.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of Russia's Wagner mercenary group which is fighting in the battle of Bakhmut, set out in detail on Saturday why he thought its capture would be significant.
"The cherry on the cake is the system of Soledar and Bakhmut mines, which is actually a network of underground cities. It not only (has the ability to hold) a big group of people at a depth of 80-100 metres, but tanks and infantry fighting vehicles can also move about."
Prigozhin, who would likely see his political capital in Moscow boosted if Bakhmut fell to Russia given Wagner's role in the fighting there, said stockpiles of weapons had been stored in the underground complexes since World War One.
His comments were a reference to vast salt and other mines in the area which contain more than 100 miles of tunnels and a vast underground room which has hosted football matches and classical music concerts in more peaceful times.
A White House official said on Thursday that Washington believed Prigozhin wanted to take control of salt and gypsum mines in the area for commercial reasons. It made no mention of their alleged subterranean military use.
Prigozhin, who is sanctioned in the West, cited other advantages of taking Bakhmut, calling it "a serious logistics centre" with unique defensive fortifications.
He made his comments on his press service's Telegram channel as shellfire echoed around Bakhmut's near-deserted streets on Saturday despite a self-declared Russian ceasefire to mark Orthodox Christmas, something Kyiv rejected as a ploy.
Bakhmut, which Russia calls Artyomovsk, is the focus of the most intense fighting in Ukraine, and Prigozhin made his comments as another Telegram channel associated with Wagner claimed Russia had captured a strategically-important settlement on Bakhmut's outskirts.
Reuters could not independently verify the assertion.
The Russian defence ministry earlier on Saturday reported fierce fighting in eastern Ukraine.
A Ukrainian defence ministry spokesman said the town of Soledar, which is near Bakhmut and hosts a salt mine, was still under Ukrainian control despite what he described as fierce Russian assaults.
RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
Russia honors Christmas truce despite Ukrainian strikes – Moscow
Russian troops are observing a 36-hour Orthodox Christmas truce despite attacks by Ukrainian forces, the country’s Defense Ministry has confirmed. The statement came after Kiev rejected Moscow’s declaration of a unilateral ceasefire, due to expire at midnight on Saturday.
The ministry said during its daily press briefing on Saturday that its troops “have been observing the ceasefire across all of the combat contact line.”
“At the same time, the Kiev authorities have fired artillery at cities and the Russian positions,” the ministry said. It added that Ukrainian soldiers have shelled multiple areas in Donbass and Russia’s newly incorporated territories in the south, and that the Russian military opened fire in response to Ukrainian attacks on several occasions.
Ukrainian forces fired more than 60 large-caliber shells at Donetsk and hit the nearby city of Makeyevka with US-supplied HIMARS multiple rocket launchers, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.
Officials in the Donetsk People’s Republic said two people were wounded and several apartment blocks and private houses were damaged on Saturday. A Ukrainian drone was destroyed near the port of Sevastopol in Crimea, according to Governor Mikhail Razvozhayev. Sevastopol houses Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that the ceasefire would allow Orthodox Christians, who make up the majority in Russia and Ukraine, to go to church and celebrate Christmas safely. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, meanwhile, claimed that a truce proposal was a deceptive move by Russia to halt Ukrainian advances in Donbass and advance additional soldiers and equipment to the frontline.
** Ukraine running out of time
Former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former Defense Secretary Robert Gates have admitted that Ukraine’s economy and military are almost completely reliant on bailouts from the West, and barring a dramatic turnaround, its chances of victory are slipping away.
Ukraine’s “economy is in a shambles,” the ex-diplomat and former Pentagon chief wrote in the Washington Post on Saturday.
The country’s “military capability and economy are now dependent almost entirely on lifelines from the West,” they continued, arguing that should Ukraine fail to mount a successful offensive in the near future, President Vladimir Zelensky will be pressured by the West to negotiate a ceasefire with Russian President Vladimir Putin – something the Ukrainian leader has repeatedly refused to consider.
With the frontline relatively static since autumn, Russian forces have ground down their Ukrainian opponents in fierce fighting near Bakhmut/Artyomovsk, with an American mercenary commander recently acknowledging that Ukraine is suffering “extraordinarily high casualties” in that sector, and Ukraine’s ambassador to Canada, Vadim Pristaiko, describing his side’s casualties as “huge” and “indigestible.”
Kiev has publicly proclaimed that it plans a major offensive in the spring, but Rice and Gates wrote that Ukraine may have “weeks, not months” to stay in the fight.
To that end, they advocated sending the country more and heavier weapons. Although the US has already allocated more than $110 billion in military and economic aid to Ukraine since February, they said that Washington won’t send heavy tanks. Germany “and other allies” should fill this need instead, they argued.
The Biden administration announced on Friday that it would give Ukraine 50 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles – the most modern armor sent to Kiev so far – as part of a $3 billion weapons package. France also pledged a number of wheeled ‘light tanks’, and Germany promised 40 Marder infantry fighting vehicles.
Nevertheless, Kiev says it needs more. In an interview with The Economist last month, Ukrainian general Valery Zaluzhny said he would need 300 more tanks, up to 700 infantry fighting vehicles, and 500 howitzers to conduct offensive operations. This is more than the number of such vehicles in the entire British or German inventory.
Russia, meanwhile, has repeatedly insisted that “pumping” Ukraine with weapons will ultimately have no effect on the outcome of the conflict and will only serve to prolong the hostilities and lead to more bloodshed.
Reuters/RT
