Kiev, April 18, (dpa/GNA) – Heavy fighting continues over the now destroyed city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, as Russian troops attack from the air with heavy artillery, Ukrainian and British officials said on Tuesday.
“There is a realistic possibility that Russia has reduced troop numbers, and is decreasing offensive action around Donetsk city, most likely to divert resources toward the Bakhmut sector,” the British Defence Ministry wrote in its daily Ukraine war update on Twitter.
Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of the Ukrainian land forces, reported heavy fighting in Bakhmut, as Russian troops attack from the air with heavy artillery.
However he said that “the situation is under control at this point.”
The British Defence Ministry, said the mercenary Wagner Group forces and the regular Russian army, “continue to make creeping advances” but Ukraine is generally holding off their advancement from the south.
Strategically both sides have to weigh a drawdown of forces from Bakhmut, the tweet said. For the Ukrainian military, it is about getting enough forces to launch the expected spring offensive, while Russian forces likely want to regenerate their reserves.
Syrskyi predicted Ukrainian forces would inflict heavy losses on the enemy and “noticeably slow down” the Russian attack.
Meanwhile a statement from the Kremlin, said Russian President Vladimir Putin had travelled again to the war zone in Ukraine. This would be his second trip since he ordered the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
Putin met Russian troops fighting in the regions of Kherson and Luhansk, according to a statement published in Moscow on Tuesday.
In Kherson in occupied southern Ukraine, he was briefed by the commander of the airborne troops, Colonel General Mikhail Teplinsky. In Luhansk in the east, the 70-year-old Kremlin leader met Colonel General Alexander Lapin and other high-ranking officers.
He also gave the Russian soldiers an icon in view of the Orthodox Easter celebration last weekend, the Kremlin announced.
The exact date of the troop visit was not disclosed. Putin was in Moscow over the weekend and took part in an Easter service by Patriarch Kirill.
International pressure on Russian from Western powers has not abated since the invasion.
In Japan, foreign ministers of the Group of Seven (G7) industrialized nations said they “remain committed to intensifying sanctions against Russia, coordinating and fully enforcing them … and countering Russia’s and third parties’ attempts to evade and undermine our sanctions measures.”
“We reiterate our call on third parties to cease assistance to Russia’s war, or face severe costs,” the ministers said in a joint statement adopted at the conclusion of a meeting in Karuizawa.
The G7 again called on Russia to withdraw immediately and unconditionally from Ukraine.
GNA