The US has committed to supplying Ukraine with even more weapons to carry out a counter-attack, and attempts to end the war through diplomatic means have also returned to the spotlight, writes Reuters.
After months of fighting in the freezing cold, Ukrainian army commanders have announced that a counter-offensive is planned soon, and have stressed the importance of holding cities, including Bakhmut, and increasing the casualties of the occupiers.
Serhiy Zgurets, director of Defense Express, a Ukrainian information consultancy, said the issue of a counterattack had been widely discussed, perhaps even too widely. He wrote on Espresso TV that Ukrainian diplomats would have to convince allies that pushing back the Russian army alone would not be enough to win the war:
«It will mean training our soldiers in NATO member-states, securing the equipment and ammunition
we need and planning to determine when and where to start the counter-attack, or if it should be in several places at once.»
French President Emmanuel Macron will visit China on Wednesday, the 5th of April. Macron agreed with US President Joe Biden that it is necessary to find ways to involve China in stopping the war. In 2022, the Asian power concluded an unlimited cooperation agreement with Russia. China has refrained from criticizing Russia and has offered its peace plan.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, on the other hand, plans to go to Poland, which has taken in more than a million Ukrainian war refugees since the beginning of the war.
On Tuesday, the 4th of April, the US announced the allocation of an additional 2.6 billion dollars for military aid to Kyiv. Addressing US officials, Zelensky said:
«The main thing is not to lose time, not to lose the chance we have. Act now, help now.
Ukrainians act so that Americans don’t have to fight – and together we gain new strength for our countries.»
Meanwhile, the Russian embassy in Washington has accused the US of artificially prolonging the conflict. Tens of thousands of civilians and soldiers have died in the war, which Russia calls a «special operation» to liberate the neighboring country from Nazism.
Bloody fighting continues in eastern Ukraine, especially around Bakhmut. Although the owner of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has informed that the Russians have captured Bakhmut, the Ukrainians deny it.
The commander of a Ukrainian unit stationed near Bakhmut said that the Russians continue to come closer and try to exhaust the Ukrainian forces, while the Ukrainians allow the Russians to come closer to hit the enemies more precisely.
Read also: Ukraine: Russians are far from capturing Bakhmut