WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Eight dead in Sloviansk strike as Ukrainians said to pull back in Bakhmut

A Russian missile strike killed eight people in eastern Ukraine on Friday as a British assessment said Ukrainian troops had been forced to withdraw from parts of the city of Bakhmut, the focus of Moscow's slow advance through the region.

Ukrainian troops have been doggedly defending Bakhmut, shattered after months of shelling and bombardment. Ukrainian military commanders this week rejectedas exaggerated Russian statements that its forces now controlled 80% of the city.

In Sloviansk, a city west of Bakhmut that Russia is seeking to capture, missile strikes on apartment buildings and other targets killed eight people and injured 21, regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko told national television. He said seven missiles had been fired.

Two top floors collapsed in one building and rescuers searched for survivors into the night, pulling one woman in her seventies alive from the rubble. A child died on the way to a hospital after being rescued, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's office.

"The evil state once again demonstrates its essence," Zelenskiy wrote on Telegram in a post accompanied by footage of the damaged building. "Just killing people in broad daylight. Ruining, destroying all life."

The strike was one of a long series of attacks to hit civilian areas in the war, now just over a year old. Russia has repeatedly said it does not target civilian sites.

RE-ENERGISED ASSAULT ON BAKHMUT

The assessment by Britain's military said Russia had been pouring in new resources in a bid to capture Bakhmut, seen by Moscow as a stepping stone to capturing more territory in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region, a major war aim.

Western countries have in the past pointed to acrimony between the Russian defence ministry (MoD) and the country's main mercenary force Wagner as a significant Russian weakness.

"Russia has re-energised its assault on the Donetsk Oblast town of Bakhmut as forces of the Russian MoD and Wagner Group have improved co-operation," Britain's military said in a daily briefing note.

"Ukrainian forces face significant resupply issues but have made orderly withdrawals from the positions they have been forced to concede."

Near Bakhmut, soldiers from a Ukrainian artillery unit were loading shells into a Soviet-era howitzer and firing towards the front line, where they said Russia had massed its foot soldiers.

"Our target in that direction is mostly infantry. There is a big concentration of the Russian Federation's 'human factor'," said Dmytro, 44, the artillery unit's commander. The gun thundered as the unit blasted three shells, the first to find range, the second to adjust aim.

"The third one is finishing off. Most likely, I hope, the infantry they spotted was eliminated."

Bakhmut, which held around 70,000 people before the war, has been Russia's main target in a massive winter offensive that has so far yielded scant gains despite infantry ground combat of an intensity unseen in Europe since World War Two.

The British update said the Ukrainians still held western districts of the town but had been subjected to particularly intense Russian artillery fire over the previous 48 hours.

Wagner mercenary units were now focusing on advancing in the centre of Bakhmut, while Russian paratroopers were relieving them in attacks on the city's flanks, it said.

The Institute for the Study of War think tank said geolocated footage indicated that Russian forces had advanced further west into central Bakhmut the previous day and made "marginal advances" in the south and southwest of the city.

Capturing the city would be Russia's first substantial victory in eight months.

In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy said he told commanders at a meeting that the main aim remained "the destruction of the occupiers (and) the depletion of their resources."

In Washington, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said "fruitful meetings this week" had secured promises of $5 billion in additional funding to support Kyiv's fight against Russia.

Shmyhal met with representatives of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the European Investment Bank, as well as top U.S. officials, on the sidelines of the spring meetings of the IMF and the World Bank.

After major Ukrainian breakthroughs in the second half of 2022, the front lines have barely budged over the last five months, despite a massive Russian offensive.

Moscow has made use of hundreds of thousands of freshly conscripted reservists and thousands of convicts recruited as mercenaries from jails. Kyiv, meanwhile, has mostly stuck to defending its lines while waiting for the arrival of new Western arms for an expected counter-offensive in coming months.

Wagner's founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, writing on his Telegram channel, said Ukraine had to mount its expected counter-offensive soon or "gradually lose their combative potential."

"For us, Bakhmut is very advantageous. We grind down the Ukrainian army there and restrain its manoeuvres," he said.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Putin signs new conscription law

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday signed into law the amended conscription and mobilization rules, establishing a unified digital database of citizens subject to military service. The measure was fast-tracked through the legislature in Moscow in less than a week.

The Ministry of Digital Development was tasked with establishing the registry, which will be operated by the Ministry of Defense. The government will draw on its existing databases to populate the registry, including tax, election, medical, police and court records, and those drawn from employers and universities.

The register will help track the summons sent out to eligible conscripts not just by mail but now also electronically, using the “appropriate” platforms, such as the state services portal ‘Gosuslugi’. The summons will be considered served within seven days of being posted to the registry. From the moment the summons is issued, the recipient will not be allowed to leave Russia.

The new law also introduces penalties for failing to report. Those who do not respond to the summons within 20 days, without a valid exemption, will not be allowed to register a business, vehicle or real estate, or to obtain bank loans. Various regions and republics may also limit or discontinue the payment of benefits and other government support. Such decisions may be appealed in court, however.

The amendments were introduced by the State Duma’s defense committee on April 10, and the lower chamber voted to pass them the following day. The Russian Senate approved them by April 12. Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the fast-track procedure as being driven by national security priorities.

Russian law prescribes one year of mandatory military service for male citizens between the ages of 18 and 27. Two rounds of conscription are conducted each year, with the size of the call-up specified by a presidential decree. However, lawmakers recently introduced a separate amendment to move the age bracket up over several years, reaching 21 to 30 in 2026. The proposed change is meant to protect those in their late teens and early 20s from disruptions to their education.

Moscow has not declared a general mobilization due to the Ukraine conflict, preferring to conduct operations with professional troops and a cadre of some 300,000 reservists, called up in October 2022.

Last year’s call-up exposed some structural problems with the conscription infrastructure inherited from the Soviet Union, including loopholes and poorly maintained registries that resulted in summons being issued to citizens without prior military experience, or otherwise ineligible. 

Reuters/RT