Bakhmut of the Donetsk region remains a strategic direction for Ukraine, thanks to which the Armed Forces of Ukraine wear down the Russians, gain time, prepare, and then focus on the counter-offensive “in another place.” Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to the head of the President’s Office, spoke about this on March 10 in an interview. The print (available with a paid subscription), which is quoted NV and the portal “Word and deed”.
According to Podolyak, Ukraine now has two goals: to minimize the number of combat-ready occupiers, to tie them down in attritional battles, to disrupt the Russian offensive, and to concentrate the resources of the Ukrainian defense forces elsewhere for the spring counteroffensive.
The adviser to the head of the Presidential Office added that the defense of Bakhmut is effective and now “even surpasses its key tasks”: Russia loses five to seven times more military than Ukraine. For seven months in Bakhmut, the Russians lost about 40 thousand killed and wounded invaders, he added.
Podolyak said that Ukraine plans to regroup its forces for the offensive over the next two months and at the same time “not in a hurry.”
He emphasized that the APU need to increase the supply of heavy artillery shells of 155 mm caliber and missiles with a range of 100 to 300 km.
Also, the offensive, according to him, requires drones of various types, which will improve the accuracy of fire and inflict damage on the enemy at a distance of 20-50 km, and armored vehicles to break through the defensive lines of the invaders in the temporarily occupied territories.
In addition, according to Podolyak, the defenders of Ukraine need 400-500 tanks, attack aircraft to destroy enemy ballistic missiles and F-16, MiG or Su to control the airspace.
On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, starting a full-blown phase of the war. In fact, the Russian Federation unleashed a war against Ukraine in 2014, when, after the Revolution of Dignity, it illegally annexed Crimea and occupied part of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions.
Initially, according to the SBU, Russian President Vladimir Putin expected to seize Ukraine in a few days. But the blitzkrieg failed.
In April, the Russians were expelled from the northern regions, in September almost the entire Kharkiv region was de-occupied, in November the Ukrainian defense forces de-occupied parts of the Kherson region along with the regional center, as well as the Mykolaiv region. Now the most fierce battles are going on in the east of the country.
The war unleashed by Russia in Ukraine will end by the beginning of the summer of 2023, Kirill Budanov, head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, predicted in mid-October. “For starters” Ukraine will reach the borders of 1991, the head of intelligence said.
In early January 2023, the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense stated that Ukraine was planning a serious counteroffensive in the spring, in March the battles would be “the hottest”.
The Ukrainian authorities have repeatedly stated that they are pursuing the goal of de-occupying all Ukrainian territories seized since 2014, including Crimea. President Volodymyr Zelensky did not rule out the liberation of the peninsula by non-military means.
