Ukrainian and Russian forces are battling in the streets of Bakhmut, eastern Ukraine’s devastated “fortress” city, and Ukrainian soldiers say they are ready to launch their long-anticipated counter-offensive once the weather improves.
On the diplomatic front, French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday urged Chinese leader Xi Jinping during talks in Beijing to use his influence to persuade Russia to halt hostilities and come to the negotiating table.
However, an adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin rated the chances of peace talks starting this year at “zero”.
The months-long battle for Bakhmut, one of the last urban centres in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk province yet to fall to Moscow, has proven one of the bloodiest of Russia’s invasion, now in its 14th month.
“The battles for Bakhmut continue,” said Andriy Yermak, a senior adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“They are under way in the streets, enemy attempts to encircle the city are failing. Our command fully control the situation with the defensive ‘fortress’,” he said, using the nickname Mr Zelensky gave to the city.
Western analysts have played down the strategic significance of Bakhmut but Ukraine has framed its dogged defence of what is now a completely destroyed city as a way of wearing down Russian forces. Both sides have suffered huge casualties there.
“Bakhmut is performing the key task of inflicting as many losses on Russia as possible and, most importantly, to prepare for a counter-attack to take place in late April-May,” Pavlo Narozhniy, a Ukrainian military analyst, told NV Radio.
Fighting is also raging further south in Avdiivka, a town near the regional capital of Donetsk, he added.
President Zelensky on Wednesday said Ukrainian troops could withdraw from Bakhmut if they risked getting cut off.
Mr Zelensky was speaking on a trip to Warsaw where he said Poland, a close ally of his country, would help form a coalition of Western powers to supply war planes to Kyiv.
The Polish government said it would send 10 more MiG fighter jets on top of four provided earlier, but there has been no agreement from the United States or Ukraine’s other major military backers to send the F-16 fighters Kyiv has requested.
Russia said its “special military operation” in Ukraine was necessary to protect its security against what it sees as a hostile and aggressive West.
Kyiv and its Western allies say Moscow is waging an unprovoked war aimed at grabbing territory.
France’s Mr Macron pressed China’s Mr Xi on Thursday to pressure Mr Putin to end the war in Ukraine.
Mr Xi has called Mr Putin a “dear friend”, their nations have declared a “no-limits’ partnership, and Beijing has refrained from criticising Russia’s invasion.
“The Russian aggression in Ukraine has dealt a blow to (international) stability,” Mr Macron told Mr Xi, standing alongside the Chinese president outside the Great Hall of the People ahead of their meeting.
“I know I can count on you to bring back Russia to reason and everyone back to the negotiating table.”
There are currently no talks aimed at ending the war, and Dmitry Suslov, an adviser to Mr Putin, was quoted as saying there was “zero” chance of peace talks happening in 2023.
In comments that seemed to confirm the importance of Crimea in any Ukrainian counter-offensive, an adviser to Ukraine’s Mr Zelensky told the Financial Times in an interview on Thursday that Kyiv would be willing to discuss the future of the Black Sea peninsula if its forces reached the border of Crimea.
“If we will succeed in achieving our strategic goals on the battlefield and when we will be on the administrative border with Crimea, we are ready to open (a) diplomatic page to discuss this issue,” Andriy Sybiha said.
The war has exposed weaknesses within Russia’s military.
In its daily intelligence briefing on Thursday, Britain’s defence ministry said it was “highly likely” that Moscow had sacked Colonel-General Rustam Muradov as commander of Russia’s eastern forces in Ukraine due to “exceptionally heavy casualties in recent months”, as well as repeated failures to seize the Donetsk region city of Vuhledar.
Reuters could not independently confirm the report.
Mr Muradov took up the command of the eastern forces last year after their failure to seize Ukraine’s capital Kyiv.
