MOSCOW (AFP) – Russia’s defense minister has inspected the frontline in east Ukraine, after the United States offered more support to Kyiv, whose forces are struggling in eastern Bakhmut.
Sergei Shoigu “inspected a command post on the front” in the direction of the southern Donetsk region, the defense ministry said.
It put out a rare video of Shoigu travelling in a helicopter and talking to a soldier in front of damaged buildings.
The visit came with fighting ongoing around Bakhmut, in the longest battle of the war.
Wagner paramilitary group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said his fighters had “practically encircled” Bakhmut, which has seen some of the fiercest fighting of the conflict.
In the latest video Friday, Prigozhin directly called on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to abandon Bakhmut, which Russia is determined to seize as part of the wider aim of capturing the entire Donetsk region.
On Saturday the president of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola visited Ukraine, where she called for the country to be allowed to begin its EU membership negotiations this year.
U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday hosted German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for his first visit since the war, in a display of partnership after friction over supplying tanks to Ukraine.
Ahead of the meeting, the Kremlin warned weapon deliveries would only “prolong the conflict and have sad consequences for the Ukrainian people”.
The United States responded to Moscow’s warning against further arming Ukraine by offering another $400 million in military assistance.
The new package features ammunition -- including for the HIMARS precision rocket system.
In the east however, Zelensky and several Ukrainian officials recognized an increasingly difficult situation around Bakhmut this week.
Sergiy Cherevaty, a spokesman for Ukrainian forces, said Saturday the situation was difficult in the city that he described as “the epicenter” of the conflict.
Moscow says its regions bordering Ukraine are routinely shelled by Ukrainian forces, but on Thursday it reported a rare instance of fighting inside Russia.
The United States has reportedly sent more military assistance to help Ukraine fight against Russia than Washington spent annually to fight its own war in Afghanistan.
The data compiled by German research firm Statista showed that U.S. military aid to Ukraine up to mid-January, covering the first 11 months of the conflict, totaled $46.6 billion.
That compared with an average annual military spend of $43.4 billion, in 2022 dollars, during the first ten years of the Afghanistan war, said Statista citing data from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.