Ukraine’s military on January 21 cited ongoing fighting in the east of the country after Russia claimed to capture a village in the area, while Western officials offered more help but also tested Ukrainian “resiliency” as Russia’s full-scale conflict approached its 12th month.
The British Defense Ministry suggested that “overall” the war currently appeared to be “in a state of deadlock.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, meanwhile, signaled growing impatience on the key question of whether the West will provide his country with the newest battle tanks, saying “a decision…must be made.”
A key Zelenskiy aide later added bluntly that “global indecision” is costing Ukrainian lives, tweeting, “Think faster.”
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The Ukrainian military’s General Staff said on January 21 that it had carried out 18 strikes on concentrations of Russian forces while it blamed the Russian side for attacks on 12 settlements in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.
It said three of seven Russian missile strikes targeted the cities of Kramatorsk and Hulyaipole, and cited rocket salvoes that appeared to target “civilian infrastructure” in the city of Nikopol.
The Russian Defense Ministry claimed a day earlier to have captured the village of Kleshchiyivka, in the Donetsk region about five kilometers south of the city of Bakhmut, echoing an unconfirmed claim by the head of the Vagner mercenary group.
But the ministry said regular Russian troops were involved, while Vagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin credited the purported success to his private fighters.
The Ukrainian military’s General Staff initally said only that Russian forces had shelled Kleshchiyivka and did not explicitly mention that village in its January 21 update.
RFE/RL cannot confirm battlefield developments in the areas of heavy fighting.
But hours later, the British Defense Ministry’s daily intelligence assessment acknowledged “a realistic possibility of local Russian advances around Bakhmut,” although it said “overall, the conflict is in a state of deadlock.”
The U.K. intelligence update said “the heaviest fighting” was concentrated in three areas, including near Bakhmut; in the northeast near the town of Kremina where Ukraine “has likely made small gains;” and in the Zaporizhzhya region in the south where Europe’s largest nuclear plant is in Russian hands.
The British said “both sides have massed significant forces” in the Zaporizhzhya region “but have avoided any large-scale offensive effort.”
They said Russian regular troops and Vagner proxy forces “have likely been reconstituting” in the salt-mining town of Soledar captured last week.
Reuters quoted a senior Biden administration official as saying on January 20 that U.S. officials were advising Kyiv to wait to launch any major offensive against Russian forces until Ukrainian forces were trained up on the latest U.S. weaponry bound for Ukraine.
The report comes with Britain poised to start training Ukrainian troops ahead of a shipment of Challenger 2 battle tanks but other NATO allies are still debating the supply of modern Western battle tanks.
The U.S. official that Reuters quoted said Washington was still not ready to provide Ukraine with any of its highly regarded Abrams tanks.
The Ukraine Defense Contact Group of Kyiv’s Western allies met on January 20 at the Ramstein U.S. Air Base in Germany, where defense ministers and other representatives of 54 countries gathered for talks aimed at coordinating the military aid they are sending.
Germany was said to be resisting pressure by Poland to at least to green-light it and other countries to supply German-manufactured Leopard 2 tanks to Kyiv.
U.S. military officials have suggested that country’s latest pledge of weaponry is ready to use and provides sufficient firepower for Ukraine to defend itself.
It includes air-defense systems, Humvees, ammunition for artillery, and missiles for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS).
In his regular video address late on January 20, Zelenskiy cast the stalemate as part of an ongoing debate and suggested that the meeting in Ramstein would “strengthen our resilience.” He said some of the meeting’s details could not be announced publicly.
“Yes, we will still have to fight for the supply of modern tanks,” Zelenskiy said, “but every day we make it more evident that there is no alternative that a decision about tanks must be made.”
Then, on January 21, senior Zelenskiy adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak tweeted that “You’ll help Ukraine with the necessary weapons anyway and realize that there is no other option to end the war except the defeat of [Russia].”
He added: “But today’s indecision is killing more of our people. Every day of delay is the death of Ukrainians. Think faster.”
