‘KYIV WILL FIGHT TO HOLD BAKHMUT FORTRESS AS LONG AS IT CAN’
Zelensky urges West to supply long-range weapons
President Volodymyr Zelensky said yesterday that Ukraine would fight to hold on to the eastern “fortress” city of Bakhmut for as long as it could, and urged the West to supply long-range weapons to help Kyiv push Russian forces out of the Donbas region.
“Nobody will give away Bakhmut. We will fight for as long as we can. We consider Bakhmut our fortress,” Zelensky told a news conference with top European Union officials following a summit in Kyiv.
“If weapons [supplies] are quickened, specifically long range weapons, we not only will not leave Bakhmut, but we will also begin to deoccupy Donbas, which has been occupied since 2014,” he said.
The city of Bakhmut has become the focal point of Ukrainian resistance to Russia’s attacks and of Moscow’s drive to regain battlefield momentum.
Russian officials have said Russian forces are encircling Bakhmut from several directions and battling to take control of a road which is also an important supply route for Ukrainian forces.
Zelensky said Russia would continue to push in the east but that Ukrainian forces would be able to hold out until more Western weapons arrived.
Meanwhile, the European Union will unveil its 10th package of sanctions against Russia on February 24 to mark the anniversary of Moscow’s war on Ukraine , a senior official from the bloc said in Kyiv yesterday, as Ukrainian forces gird for an expected Russian offensive in coming weeks.
The sanctions will target technology used by Russia’s war machine, among other things, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told a news conference.
The sanctions will take aim in particular at components used in the manufacturing of drones, she said, naming Iran as a key supplier of Russia.
Closing loopholes that the Kremlin uses to circumvent sanctions will also be a priority, according to Von der Leyen, who was on her fourth visit to the Ukrainian capital since the war began. The exact measures in the next EU sanctions package must be agreed upon by the bloc’s 27 member countries — a process that can take weeks.
Top EU officials met Zelensky in a show of support for the country as it battles to counter the Kremlin’s forces and strives to join the EU as well as Nato.
The last such summit was held in Kyiv in October 2021 — a few months before the war started. The highly symbolic visit is also the first EU political mission of its kind to a country at war.
The high-level meeting came as a 60-year-old man was killed and six others were wounded yesterday after Russian missiles hit central Toretsk, a town in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. Ukrainian authorities reported that at least six civilians were killed and 20 others wounded over the previous 24 hours.