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After months of fierce fighting, both warring sides in eastern Ukraine are now complaining about a lack of ammunition. In the battle for the largely destroyed city of Bakhmut, the Russian attackers around the Wagner mercenaries called for supplies, as did the defenders.

Over the weekend, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba directly asked Germany for ammunition. Despite all the complaints, the fighting continued unabated. According to British experts, eastern Bakhmut is now largely under Russian control. However, the city does not want to give up on Kiev.

In a telephone conversation with US Chief of Staff Mark Milley, Ukrainian Supreme Commander Valeriy Zalushnyi pushed for new munitions and technology. In addition, his country’s air defenses must be strengthened, he said, according to official information. Foreign Minister Kuleba told the “Bild am Sonntag” that the lack of ammunition was the “number one” problem in the fight against the Russian occupiers. “Germany could really help more with ammunition. With artillery ammunition.”

However, according to their boss Yevgeny Prigozchin, the Russian mercenary group Wagner also lacks artillery shells and cartridges. Prigozhin said in a video that his troops needed 10,000 tons of ammunition every month for the battle of Bakhmut. He urgently requested supplies. The video allegedly shows him on the roof of a house in Bakhmut. You see many destroyed houses and streets. Only a few thousand of the once 70,000 inhabitants still live there, most of them in ruins.

The Bakhmutka River, which flows north-south through the city center, is now the front line, the British Ministry of Defense said in a report. The Ukrainian army has destroyed bridges and shelled a “death zone” 200 to 800 meters along the river from the western part of the city. That makes it “very challenging for the Wagner forces to continue their frontal assault to the west”.

Moscow calls such reports disinformation. But the Institute for War Studies (ISW) from the US also reported that Wagner’s mercenaries were finding it increasingly difficult to make significant progress in the urban area.

Bachmut has been contested since late summer. The city is the main part of the Ukrainian defense line in the Donetsk region. If they succeeded, the Russians would gain access to the major cities of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk. According to his foreign minister, Ukraine will continue to defend Bakhmut despite heavy losses. The longer this is possible, the greater the chance “that other cities will not suffer the same fate”.

Russia attacked Ukraine on February 24 last year. During the annexation, which was internationally criticized as a violation of international law, his forces occupied the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia. However, they do not have complete control in any region. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s goal is to liberate all areas, including the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014.

Almost since the beginning of the war, Russian troops have been complaining about the lack of training and equipment. In a new video call, reservists from the war zone ask President Vladimir Putin for help. In the message distributed by Telegram, a spokesperson complained in front of a dozen uniformed people – all masked – about the lack of night vision goggles. The commanders sent unprepared units into the storm.

According to the British government, the leadership in Moscow largely protects the inhabitants of their metropolises from the war effort. Moscow and Saint Petersburg were relatively spared from the “extremely heavy casualties” – in many eastern regions the casualty rate is probably more than 30 times higher than in the capital. Ethnic minorities are particularly affected.

Meanwhile, both warring sides, brokered by Turkey, continue to wrestle over the agreement to export grain across the Black Sea, which expires next Saturday. The grain supply of many regions in other countries depends on this. According to the Russian foreign ministry, talks with the United Nations are scheduled for next Monday in Geneva.

However, spokeswoman Maria Zakharova complained that no negotiations had been held with Russia so far. On the other hand, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar told the Anadolu Agency that Moscow and Kiev had a positive view on the matter. “We are convinced that the deadline will be extended on March 18.”

After its invasion, Russia initially blocked all Ukrainian Black Sea ports. The grain initiative enables the controlled export of three of them.

(dpa)