A day after a deadly rocket attack on Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy blamed not only the Russian leadership but also soldiers for war crimes. “Not just the commanders, but all of you, you are all terrorists and murderers and you all have to be punished,” said the 45-year-old on Saturday evening in his daily video address. Anyone who steers and fires rockets, who maintains planes and ships for terror, is complicit in the deaths of the war, he said.
The background is the rocket attack on the city of Uman in which 23 people died on Friday. According to Selenskyj, there were six minors among them. Anyone who prepares such rocket attacks must know that they are complicit in the deaths of civilians, stressed the Ukrainian head of state.
It is therefore necessary that Russia is actually held accountable for its crimes. Once again, Zelenskyy advocated the creation of an international tribunal against Russia along the lines of the Nuremberg trials of the Nazis.
It is not enough to weaken Russia in the war, Zelenskyy added. Earlier, the Ukrainian head of state said in an interview with Scandinavian media that Russia is already “weakening every day”. That is why Moscow has changed its tactics and is now no longer thinking about new conquests, but rather about defending the occupied territories.
The background is the expected Ukrainian counter-offensive, with which Kiev intends to recapture Ukrainian areas occupied by Russia. At the moment, however, Russia is still on the attack – but is having difficulties making progress.
According to information from Kiev, the Russian attackers in the battle for Bakhmut were unable to cut off the Ukrainian supply routes to the badly damaged city. “The Russians have been talking for several weeks about conquering the “Road of Life” and constantly controlling fire over it. In fact, everything is different,” Serhiy Cherevatyy, spokesman for Army Group East of the Ukrainian armed forces, told zn.ua. Although the connecting road from Bakhmut to Chasiv Yar was fought over, the Russians were unable to interrupt the defenders’ logistics. The information could not be verified independently.
The supply of provisions, weapons and ammunition is secured, explained Tscherevatyj. On the one hand, the Ukrainian forces maintained their positions along the road, on the other hand, engineers had already laid new routes to Bakhmut. “All of this makes it possible to keep Bachmut alive,” he said. In its situation report, the Ukrainian general staff also spoke of “unsuccessful attempts” by the Russian attackers to gain ground in the area.
For months, Bachmut has been attacked by Russian troops, especially the Wagner mercenary group. According to their own statements, the attackers now control around 85 percent of the city area. The Ukrainian leadership insists on holding the city, which has now been largely destroyed, and justifies this with the high losses of the attacking troops, which would be worn down in this way.
The head of the Russian Wagner mercenary unit, Yevgeny Prigozhin, admitted that there were problems. Because of the high losses due to a lack of supplies, he threatened to withdraw his troops from Bakhmut. “Every day we have stacks of thousands of bodies that we put in coffins and send home,” Prigozhin said in an interview with Russian military blogger Semyon Pegov published on Saturday. Losses were five times higher than necessary because of the lack of artillery ammunition, he complained.
He wrote a letter to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to get supplies as soon as possible. “If the ammunition deficit is not replenished, we are forced – in order not to run like cowardly rats afterwards – either to withdraw in an organized manner or to die,” said the 61-year-old.
In an audio message on Sunday night, he put this information into perspective. In the course of the day, Wagner advanced another 100 to 150 meters in the city. Meanwhile, he estimated the daily losses at almost 100 men.
According to official information, two people were killed by shelling from Ukraine in the western Russian border region of Bryansk. The governor of the Bryansk region, Alexander Bogomas, wrote this in his Telegram channel on Sunday night. In addition, Ukrainian forces destroyed a house in the village of Susemka and damaged two other houses. Russia repeatedly complains of shelling on its own territory.
The new Czech President Petr Pavel meanwhile visited the central metropolis Dnipro on the second day of his trip to Ukraine. There he spoke to local representatives about the reconstruction plans for the region, as journalists traveling with him reported on Saturday.
The battles for Bakhmut continue. According to Prigozhin, the Ukrainian troops only hold about three square kilometers of the city area. Nevertheless, the defenders do not want to give up the largely destroyed city – also in order to tie up and wear down Russian forces before their own counter-offensive is expected.
