by AFP
Ukraine says latest Russian assault on Bakhmut repulsed
Ukraine said it had fought off a fresh Russian assault on the eastern city of Bakhmut on Saturday as it endured a fresh wave of shelling in the disputed Donetsk region. Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials recovered the bodies of two British volunteers, killed trying to help evacuate people. from the eastern war zone. And the southern city of Odessa suffered a massive power outage affecting half a million homes after an accident at a war-damaged electrical substation. They surrounded Bakhmut and launched a powerful offensive in the Lyman sector,” said Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar. “But thanks to the resistance of our soldiers, they were unsuccessful.” Ukraine’s border guard service reported that its soldiers had halted latest attack., killing four and wounding seven of the attacking forces.Russia unleashed a new wave of shelling on the eastern front on Saturday morning.Ukrainian officials reported shelling in the Chernigiv, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv Lugansk, Donetsk and Mykolaiv. In his evening speech, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged that the situation was becoming more difficult for our forces to break through our defense. “It is very difficult now in Bakhmut, Vugledar, Lyman and other areas,” he added, referring to the frontline cities in the east of the country.On Friday, at an unprecedented summit with EU leaders in Kyiv, the leader of Ukraine promised: “No one will hand over Bakhmut. We will fight as long as we can.” More sophisticated and long-range weapons promised by their Western partners could help turn the tide of the fighting there in Ukraine’s favor, he added. France, Italy and the United States on Friday promised new arms deliveries to Ukraine.Kyiv, while expressing its gratitude, is already pushing for more, including fighter jets.- Foreign casualties – Officials in Kyiv said on Saturday the bodies of two Britons killed as they tried to help people evacuate the area Chris Parry, 28, and Andrew Bagshaw, 47, were doing volunteer work in Soledar, in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, when their vehicle reportedly was hit by a shell. Their bodies were returned to the Ukrainian authorities as part of a larger exchange, in which Kyiv obtained 116 prisoners and Russia 63. We want to return the bodies of the dead foreign volunteers,” said Andriy Yermak, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff, naming them after the two British men. The head of the Wagner Russian mercenary group, which helped capture Soledar from Ukrainian forces, said on January 11 that one of the bodies of the missing men had been found there. Wagner’s boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, had a He also posted online passport photos that appeared to belong to Parry and Bagshaw, who he said were found with the bodies. On Friday, news emerged of the death of an American doctor killed in Bakhmut when his evacuation vehicle was hit by a missile. Global Outreach Doctors, with whom he worked, said Pete Reed, 33, a former U.S. Marine Corps rifleman who also worked as a paramedic. Ukrenergo, the country’s power operator, reported the accident at a substation that supplies the city and the Odessa region. The power grid had been gradually degraded by repeated Russian shelling in recent months, he added: “As a result, the reliability of power supply in the region has decreased.” “As of today, almost 500,000 customers have no power supply,” said Maksym Marchenko of the Odessa regional administration. Energy Minister Herman Galushchenko said it reached “about a third of consumers” there. “The situation is complex, the scale of the accident is significant,” Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said on the Telegram messaging application.- New embargo – On Sunday, Russia faces a new twist on sanctions, with an embargo on ship deliveries of its refined petroleum products. a cap of $60 per barrel on exports of Russian crude to other parts of the world. The new embargo and price caps from Sunday will target Russian refined petroleum products such as gasoline, diesel and heating oil arriving by ship. In Brussels on Friday, the European Union, the Group of Seven industrialized countries and Australia agreed to limit the price of refined petroleum products from Moscow. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen estimated this week that the oil price cap costs Moscow about 160 million euros ($170 million) a day. The Kremlin has warned that the measures will destabilize world markets.bur-jj/pvh
