New developments:
- Signs Kyiv’s spring counteroffensive may be coming soon.
- Chinese diplomat causes stir over Crimea sovereignty comments.
- Black Sea Grain Initiative in peril as May 18 expiration deadline approaches.
Russia and Ukraine traded claims on Sunday over the embattled city of Bakhmut.
Moscow said its forces had taken two more neighborhoods in the western area of the nearly destroyed city but offered no details.
Russia, which invaded Ukraine 14 months ago, sees taking Bakhmut as a pathway to other advances in eastern Ukraine.
However, Ukrainian Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi posted on the messaging app Telegram images of he and his troops at the frontline and said, “We hit the enemy, often unexpectedly for him, and continue to hold strategic lines.”
Neither The Associated Press nor Reuters could verify the battlefield reports.
Last month, Deputy Ukrainian Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Bakhmut, which had a pre-war population of more than 70,000, now has fewer than 4,000 civilians, including 38 children, remaining, Reuters reported. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said those left are eking out an existence in underground shelters under heavy shelling.
Late Saturday, the Institute for the Study of War said that geolocated footage published by pro-Kremlin military bloggers seemed to show that Ukraine was preparing for a long-awaited spring counteroffensive against Russian troops.
The Washington-based think tank said the pro-Kremlin bloggers indicated that Ukrainian troops had established positions north of the town of Oleshky in the Kherson region in southern Ukraine.
Analysts have said a major goal of a possible Ukrainian counteroffensive would be to break through the land corridor between Russia and the annexed Crimean Peninsula, which would necessitate crossing the Dnieper River in the country's south, the AP reported.
Vladimir Saldo, the Kremlin-installed head of the Kherson region, said in a Telegram post that Russian forces are “in full control” of the area and speculated that the images referenced by the ISW may have depicted Ukrainian sabotage units that “managed to take a selfie” across the Dnieper before being forced back.
The AP confirmed the posts from the bloggers, but it wasn't immediately possible to independently verify the data they shared.
Also Sunday, Russia said it was ramping up its recruitment military campaign by trying to appeal to Russian masculine pride, calling on “real men” to fight in its invasion of Ukraine, the British defense ministry said in its intelligence update posted on Twitter.
The ads for the new campaign on billboards, TV, and social media sites also feature financial rewards of signing up for the Russian military, but it is “highly unlikely” that Russia will meet its target of 400,000 volunteer recruits, the British ministry said.
Chinese diplomat’s Crimea comment
Allies expressed their consternation Sunday after China’s ambassador to Paris, Lu Shaye, questioned the sovereignty of former Soviet countries such as Ukraine, in an interview Friday.
The Chinese ambassador said on French television that Crimea was historically part of Russia and had been offered to Ukraine by former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1991."These ex-USSR countries don't have actual status in international law because there is no international agreement to materialize their sovereign status," Shaye added.
France responded on Sunday by stating its "full solidarity" with all the allied countries affected, which it said had acquired their independence "after decades of oppression."
A senior Ukrainian presidential official also took issue with the Chinese diplomat’s comment.
"It is strange to hear an absurd version of the 'history of Crimea’ from a representative of a country that is scrupulous about its thousand-year history," Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior Ukrainian presidential aide, wrote on Twitter.
The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania also reacted negatively to the comment, according to the Reuters news agency.
China’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
