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| Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images |
Moscow’s faltering assault on the eastern city supports Kyiv’s decision to defend it, Ukrainian army chief says
Ukraine said Russia’s offensive against Bakhmut was beginning to run out of steam, although intense fighting continued, as Kyiv sought to explain its decision to defend the eastern Ukrainian city.
Russia’s heavy losses were paving the way for Ukraine to launch its own offensives this spring, Ukraine’s commander of ground forces, Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, said on Thursday.
“They are losing considerable forces and becoming exhausted,” Gen. Syrsky said of Russian troops around Bakhmut. “Very soon we will take advantage of this opportunity,” he said, recalling how Ukrainian forces successfully retook occupied regions in the country’s north and south last year after Russian offensives culminated.
However, Gen. Syrsky said the offensive potential of the Wagner Group, Russia’s paramilitary organization which has led the assault around Bakhmut, wasn’t yet spent, and he acknowledged the brutal conditions facing the city’s defenders. “Under the continuous fire of the enemy’s artillery and aircraft, our soldiers at the front demonstrate superhuman resilience,” he said.
Ukraine’s military and political leadership has come under criticism at home as well as from Western military analysts who question the wisdom of Kyiv’s decision to defend Bakhmut rather than retreat from the small city. The critics include some unit commanders on the ground, who worry that Ukraine is taking too many casualties itself, eroding its ability to launch offensives against Russia’s invasion forces in the coming months.
Kyiv’s determination to hold Bakhmut was also signaled by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to the area on Wednesday, when he awarded medals to front-line troops.
On Thursday, Mr. Zelensky visited the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, from which Russian forces retreated last fall. The city of Kherson and surrounding areas continue to suffer from shelling by Russian forces camped across the Dnipro River.
Slovakia said on Thursday it had delivered four MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine, part of a promised donation of 13 jets and an air-defense system, becoming the first country to give Ukraine warplanes. Poland has also promised to donate MiG-29s to Ukraine, including a batch of four planes due for delivery soon. --->READ MORE HERE
The establishment of a new New World Order races along as some of Russia’s oldest tanks creak their way towards battlefields in Ukraine. Making laws or sausages has nothing on how messily history is made, so join with me as I show you how two seemingly unrelated stories are reshaping the world.
It was barely two weeks ago that I wrote about the appearance of Russian “museum pieces” being readied for frontline combat in Ukraine. Having lost more than 3,000 capable main battle tanks from the late-’60s vintage T-64s through fully modernized T-90s, Moscow was pulling far less capable T-62 medium tanks out of storage.
Well, if the T-62 is a museum piece, then the T-54/55 series — whose development began before the Cold War officially began — is practically an archeological exhibit. And yet those very same tanks, first built when toddler Boomers were grooving on the first season of Howdy Doody, have been spotted on railcars moving west towards Ukraine from Soviet-era depots in the east. The Soviets built a crap ton of them, too — more than 60,000 between 1946 and 1981.
But you know what? Firepower is firepower. If a 75-year-old design can be used for infantry support (it wouldn’t last a hot minute in the main battle tank role), then those foot soldiers are better off with a T-55 nearby than without one.
Sending in T-55s certainly appears desperate, and maybe it is. But it’s one more indicator — in case we actually needed one — that Vladimir Putin is committed to his stupid war for the long haul. So is Communist Chinese strongman Xi Jinping, which brings us to the second element in the new New World Order. --->READ MORE HEREFollow links below to +++++relevant+++++ and related stories:
+++++Russia-Ukraine News LATEST UPDATES: (REUTERS) (AP) (NY POST) and (WSJ)+++++
+++++General Staff: Ukrainian forces repel over 80 Russian attacks on March 22+++++
+++++ISW: Russian forces dusting off ancient tanks to compensate for significant armored vehicle losses+++++
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