Alwaght- Despite the fact that Russia has announced its agreement to resumption of the peace talks with Ukraine, the Western warmongering is pushing it to make advances in other parts. Already having seized large parts of the strategic city of Bakhmut in Dontesk, Russian forces have made new progress in recent days.
The Russian ministry of defense announced on Saturday that Russian forces have captured three more areas in the western part of Bakhmut.
“Russian airborne forces contained the Ukrainian units on the two sides and supported the attack squads to capture the city,” the statement said.
The military forces of the Wagner Group are carrying out the Bakhmut operation and have been able to achieve many successes in this area, and according to reports, 90 percent of Bakhmut is now in the hands of the Russians and the rest of the areas will soon be out of the hands of the Ukrainians.
On the other hand, the Russians are noticeably advancing in other cities as well. Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine Hanna Maliar said “Russian forces continue to attack and advance in Artemovsk, and fierce battles have been going on for the past few days. The enemy is attacking and advancing in some areas.”
Artymovsk is a key logistics hub for the supply of equipment for the Ukrainian units in Donbass, and for more than six months intense fighting has been going on to capture this residential area. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also admitted that the situation on the ground was not good for the country’s forces and asked NATO to send more aids.
Bakhmut’s significance for Moscow and Kiev
In recent weeks, Russian-Ukraine battle for Bakhmut has intensified, with each side pushing to seize the city. For the Ukrainians, it is a strategic transportation center 65 kilometers north of Dontesk. Bakhmut is important because it has become the administrative center of the province, located about 600 kilometers from the Kiev, it is a fortress to defend the rest of the cities of Donetsk region.
Bakhmut is important for the Russians, as well, as it has become the only gate for advances on Dontesk front. The capture of the city could also open the way for Russian forces to reach the cities of Kramatorsk and Slovyansk, the two main cities in Donetsk, which together with Luhansk form Ukraine’s largest industrial zone. Therefore, Russia is trying to consolidate its military fortifications by seizing control of this strategic area. The advances in Bakhmut and Artemovsk follow a visit by the Russian President Vladimir Putin to Kherson region for the first time last week for updates about the battle fronts.
Kiev preparing for counteroffensive
Aspiring to get back the regions it lost, Ukraine in recent months has been designing plans for massive attacks on the Russian forces to push them back. According to recently leaked Pentagon documents, Kiev is preparing for anti-Russian attacks. In this regard, an official in the Ukrainian government claimed last week that the country will launch its counterattack on Russian forces when it is ready for it, and with the passage of time, it will acquire the necessary level of military readiness to do so.
“Ukraine’s allies are helping it and delivering ammunition and heavy armored vehicles in order to acquire the necessary technical equipment to carry out this counterattack,” Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of the National Defense and Security Council of Ukraine, said.
Since counterattack plan was revealed, a source close to Zelensky said that Kiev had to make changes to its operation design. In late February, Zelensky suggested attacking Russian installations in the Rostov region using drones ad his country lacks long-range weapons capable of reaching the region, according to a US intelligence report. Military analysts say that in a counteroffensive, Ukraine is likely to launch intensive artillery attacks along a narrow front line, followed by deployment of demining teams and tanks.
To carry out the counterattack, Ukraine reportedly sent 40,000 new forces to Poland for training by NATO. The new troops, prepared by the interior ministry, will join the fighting along with regular army forces equipped by Western new tanks and thousands of other forces trained by the Western allies out of Ukraine.
Inefficiency of Western arms
The Ukrainians are focusing on the counteroffensive against the Russian forces because they have a confidence that they can force the Russians back using modern Western arms, but the fact is that these arms have so far have not been that effective. Leopard tanks deployment to Ukraine, which took place recently after months of controversy, have shown weak performance on the battlegrounds. Military analysts say that the Ukrainian army has faced problems using the German tanks. Pravda website wrote last week that the problem of Ukraine is the low quality of the equipment and the inability of the Ukrainian military personnel to use them. Viktor Barants, a military analyst, said that the Ukrainian army does not know how to use these tanks, and this issue has made them unable to make success. According to this report, Leopard tanks are failing horribly in Ukraine. Leopard tanks received by Ukraine have reportedly been grounded even before they could be used in combat against Russian armed forces. The inability of these tanks to make a difference comes as the Russian army had developed new weapons to disable them. The grounding of these tanks is a success for Moscow to achieve its goal without costs.
Patriot missile systems the US sent to Ukraine in recent days cannot change the equations in favor of Ukraine. It is likely that these air defense suffer a fate like that of the German tanks and only cost the Westerners who over the past year emptied their arsenals.
False hope for victory
The West does not hope to make progress on the front lines using conventional weapons and is considering other options for possible win over Russia. To this end, in March, British defense ministry said it will deliver armor-piercing rounds containing depleted uranium to Ukraine, a move angering Russia. Moscow warned that the weapons that the British government is going to provide to Ukraine have nuclear components and are very dangerous and threatened to intensify its attacks in Ukraine in response. According to the Russian officials, the use of these bullets only paves the way for further escalation of tensions.
This comes as Kiev officials in recent days called on Western backers to provide more weapons, claiming that should the country is strengthened militarily, they can recapture parts of their territory from Russia. The US and Europe have sent tens of thousands of tons of ammunition to Ukraine in the past fourteen months, but no success has been achieved in the field, and contrary to what Westerners think, it is the Russians who continue to advance in Ukraine.
The Western leaders think that by flooding the front line with weapons, they can ground the Russians, but the course of developments is not going as the NATO leaders have expected and Washington officials have admitted several times that Russia will never return the captured regions to Ukraine.
The West does not seem optimistic about victory of Ukraine over Russia. Driven by this thought, the French President Emmanuel Macron on the behalf of the US and Europe proposed a peace plan, saying that it China’s help is needed to realize this plan. The US President Joe Biden had agreed with the French peace plan. Western countries have asked Ukraine not to use their weapons in attacking Russian territory and since Kiev has no domestic weapons, setting hope on the Western weapons while being not allowed to attack the Russian soil makes no sense and the Ukrainians cannot expect a progress on the battlegrounds.
