‘Fierce’ battle rages for east Ukrainian town
NEAR BAKHMUT, Ukraine: Ukrainian troops were locked on friday in a “fierce” confrontation with russian fighters for control of the town of Vuhledar, southwest of Donetsk, as the two sides battle along the southern front.
Both sides claimed success in the small administrative center of apartment blocks surrounded by flat fields, a short distance from the strategic village of Pavlivka.
“The encirclement and subsequent liberation of this city solve many problems,” said Denis Pushilin, the Moscow-appointed leader of the Donetsk region.
“Soon, Vuhledar may become a new, very important success for us,” Russian news agencies quoted him as saying.
But Kyiv said the town, which had a pre-invasion population of about 15,000 people, remained contested.
“There is fierce combat there,” Ukrainian military spokesman Sergiy Cherevaty told local media. “For many months, the military of the Russian Federation ... has been trying to achieve significant success there.”
Moscow’s push for Vuhledar is part of its effort to seize control of the entire Donetsk, which it has already declared a part of Russia.
Ukraine said this week that Russian troops had stepped up their attacks in the east, particularly on Vuhledar and Bakhmut.
And Moscow was preparing for a new offensive on February 24, the first anniversary of the Russian invasion, said Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s national security and defense council.
“Now they are preparing for maximum activation ... and they believe that, by the anniversary, they should have some achievements,” Danilov told Radio Svoboda.
“There is no secret that they are preparing for a new wave by February 24, as they themselves say,” he said.
According to the United Statesbased think tank Institute for the Study of War, Russian forces may be engaging in a series of spoiling attacks “to disperse and distract Ukrainian forces and set conditions to launch a decisive offensive operation.”
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin used International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Friday to lash out at Ukraine, calling those in the country “neo-Nazis” to justify his 11-month-old invasion.
“Forgetting the lessons of history leads to the repetition of terrible tragedies,” Putin said. “It is against that evil that our soldiers are bravely fighting.”
But in Poland, where some 3 million Jews were slaughtered during World War 2, officials pointed their fingers at Russia as perpetuating Nazi thinking.
“On the anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi German death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, let us remember that to the east Putin is building new camps,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Facebook.
“Solidarity and consistent support for Ukraine are effective ways to ensure that history does not come full circle,” he added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy marked Holocaust Remembrance Day by urging the world to unite against “indifference” and “hatred.”
“Today, as always, Ukraine honors the memory of millions of victims of the Holocaust. We know and remember that indifference kills along with hatred,” he said.
Morawiecki, meanwhile, said Poland would deliver an additional 60 tanks to Kyiv to help it fend off Russia’s aggression.
“Right now, we are ready to send 60 of our modernized tanks, 30 of them PT-91. And on top of those tanks, 14 tanks, Leopard 2 tanks, from our possession,” he said.
The tanks that have already been sent by Poland are mainly T-72 Soviet models, of which the PT-91 is a modernized version.
Ukraine has also been promised battle tanks from Germany and the US, announced earlier this week.
And Belgium announced a new 93.8-million euro ($100 million) package of military aid for Ukraine that includes cash, missiles, machine guns and armored vehicles.