WESTERN PERSPECTIVE
Zelenskiy says Ukraine will defend Bakhmut within reason from Russia
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in an interview published on Sunday that Ukraine would maintain its months-long defence of the eastern city of Bakhmut, mindful of the price paid in human lives.
Zelenskiy was quoted in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera as debate rages over whether Kyiv's outnumbered forces should remain in the eastern Ukraine city, which Russian shelling has all but destroyed.
Bakhmut, in the frontline Donetsk region, had a pre-war population of 70,000 but now Ukrainian officials estimate fewer than 5,000 civilians remain.
"Yes, it is not a particularly big town. In fact, like many others in Donbas, (it's been) devastated by the Russians. It is important for us to defend it, but not at any price and not for everyone to die," Zelenskiy told the daily.
Analysts say the town has more symbolic than strategic value as a gateway to cities farther west in Donetsk region.
Zelenskiy said that Russian commanders were bent on pushing on to the cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, farther west in Donetsk region "and as far as (the central city of) Dnipro."
"We will resist and meanwhile prepare the next counter-attack."
Russia launched its invasion a year ago this week and has concentrated on securing control of Donbas, made up of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, after failing initially to advance on the capital Kyiv.
Russian forces have besieged Bakhmut since July when they captured two major towns farther north.
Russian troops, spearheaded by the Russian Wagner Group mercenary force, have made incremental gains in nearby villages and fighting has engulfed its northern districts in the past few days.
But Ukrainian military analysts have said the town, protected by a river and wooded areas, has considerable significance in pinning down Russian occupying forces.
"There are no grounds at this time for the Ukrainian military to leave Bakhmut. The town is not surrounded," military analyst Oleksandr Kovaleno of the Ukrainian thinktank Information Resistance told the news site nv.ua.
"Bakhmut plays an important role -- it serves as a trap. For nine months it has dawn in the resources and means of the Russian occupying forces and they have been killed in large numbers. It must be regarded not as a fortress, but as a trap."
** Ukraine's Zelenskiy says Macron wasting time in considering dialogue with Russia
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in an interview published on Sunday that the French leader Emmanuel Macron was wasting his time considering any sort of dialogue with Russia.
Zelenskiy, interviewed by the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, was responding to a suggestion by Macron that Russia should be "defeated but not crushed" and that the conflict in Ukraine would have to be settled by negotiations.
The two presidents spoke by telephone on Sunday.
"It will be a useless dialogue. In fact Macron is wasting his time. I have come to the conclusion that we are not able to change the Russian attitude," Zelenskiy told the Italian daily.
"If they have decided to isolate themselves in the dream of rebuilding the old Soviet empire, we cannot do anything about it. It is up to them to choose or not to cooperate with the community of nations on the basis of mutual respect."
He rejected any suggestion that it was Western sanctions that had driven Russia President Vladimir Putin into isolation.
"It was instead the decision to launch the war that marginalised Putin," he was quoted as saying.
On Friday, Macron urged allies to step up military support for Ukraine.
He also said in an interview with the Journal du Dimanche he did not believe in regime change, that there was little chance of a democratic solution from within Russian civil society and no alternative to bringing Putin back to the negotiating table.
Those comments prompted the Russian Foreign Ministry's spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, to say that France should remember the 19th century defeat in Russia of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Macron has drawn criticism from some NATO allies for delivering mixed messages regarding his policy on the war between Ukraine and Russia.
In describing their conversation on Sunday, Zelenskiy made no mention of Macron's latest comments. The leaders discussed strategies, including joint decisions Zelenskiy said were due ahead of this week's first anniversary of Russia's invasion.
Before a brief visit to Paris this month, Zelenskiy said the French president's tougher stand on Russia in recent months showed he had undergone a significant change.
RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
Kiev plotting provocation to accuse Russia of violating Convention on Nuclear Safety
Kiev is plotting a provocation ahead of the United Nations General Assembly session to accuse Russia of the violation of the Convention on Nuclear Safety, the Russian defense ministry said on Sunday.
"Ahead of the beginning of the 11th emergency special session of the United Nations General Assembly, the Kiev regime continues plotting a large-scale provocation to accuse Russia of an alleged ‘blatant violation’ of the Convention on Nuclear Safety in the course of the special military operation," it said.
According to the ministry, the provocation is aimed at blaming the Russian army for delivering "indiscriminate strikes at radioactively hazardous facilities in Ukraine causing leaks of radioactive substances and the contamination of the terrain."
"To carry out this provocation, several containers with radioactive substances have been delivered from a European country to Ukraine bypassing customs control. These substances are supposed to be used to stage local contamination of the terrain near a Kiev-controlled radioactively hazardous facility," it said.
** Crimean bridge terror attack organized by Ukrainian special service
The investigation of the terror attack on the Crimean Bridge has proved that it was organized by Ukrainian special services, chief of Russia’s Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin said in an interview with TASS.
"The investigation has proved that Ukrainian special services were behind the organization of the terror attack on the Crimean bridge," he said.
He recalled that 12 people, including Ukrainian, Armenian, Georgian and Russian nationals, who were involved in this crime have already been identified and eight of them are in custody. "Expert studies, including technical, of evidence found on the site continue. All available information id being summed up and analyzed to establish a full picture of the incident and identify those involved in this crime," he said.
The terror attack on the Crimean bridge was committed in the morning on October 8, 2022 when a truck stuffed with explosives went off, ruining two spans of the bridge’s motorway section running to Crimea and causing fire to fuel carriages of a train going to the Krasnodar Territory. Four people were killed.
** Kremlin does not consider the West being open to peace initiatives
The West is not yet showing any readiness for peaceful initiatives on the situation in Ukraine, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with Rossiya 1 TV channel.
"So far there is no readiness or openness towards peaceful initiatives on the part of the collective West," he said.
The idea of the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko on talks between Russian and US leaders Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden is unlikely to gain support in the West, Peskov added. "It is hardly possible to expect any type of reciprocity or response to such an endeavor from any member of the collective West," he said.
Earlier, Lukashenko invited Biden to Minsk, saying he was willing to arrange his meeting with Putin.
Peskov stressed that Biden "will not have any stops during his upcoming European trip, except in Poland." On February 20-22, Joe Biden is expected to visit Poland, where he will meet with his counterpart Andrzej Duda and the leaders of the "Bucharest Nine" countries (Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Czech Republic, and Estonia).
Reuters/TASS
