AMMAN: US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Monday that the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut was of more symbolic than operational importance, and its fall would not necessarily mean that Moscow had regained the initiative in the war.
The battle for Bakhmut has raged for seven months. A Russian victory in the city, which had a pre-war population of about 70,000 but has now been blasted to ruins, would give Moscow the first major prize in a costly winter offensive.
“I think it is more of a symbolic value than it is strategic and operational value,” Austin told reporters while visiting Jordan.
“The fall of Bakhmut won’t necessarily mean that the Russians have changed the tide of this fight,” he said, adding that he would not predict whether or when Bakhmut might fall.
Russian artillery have been pounding the last routes out of the city, aiming to complete its encirclement, but the founder of the Wagner mercenary force leading the assault has said his troops are being deprived of ammunition by Moscow.
Austin said that if Ukrainian forces decided to reposition west of Bakhmut, he would not view that as a strategic setback.
Wagner often appears to operate autonomously from the regular army, or even in competition with it — and in a video published over the weekend, Prigozhin complained that the ammunition that Moscow had promised it had not been delivered.
Prigozhin regularly criticizes the military hierarchy and last month accused Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and others of “treason” for withholding munitions.
Austin alluded to differences between Wagner and the military, saying: “I think the fissures are there ...
“I would say the Wagner forces have been a bit more effective than the Russian forces ... Having said that, we have not seen exemplary performance from Russian forces.”
Fall of Bakhmut would not mean Russia has turned tide of war – Pentagon chief
https://arab.news/yfq7c
Fall of Bakhmut would not mean Russia has turned tide of war – Pentagon chief
- US defense secretary Lloyd Austin: ‘I think it is more of a symbolic value than it is strategic and operational value’
- Russian artillery have been pounding the last routes out of the city, aiming to complete its encirclement
Trump has ‘productive’ talks with Putin before Zelensky meet
- Trump’s upbeat tone on peace deal comes after Russia carried out another massive bombardment of Kyiv
- US president due to meet Zelensky at his Mar-a-Lago estate today
PALM BEACH: Donald Trump said Sunday he had “productive” talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin hours before the US president meets Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, in a year-end sprint to seal a deal to end the war.
Trump’s renewed upbeat tone comes despite wide skepticism in Europe about Putin’s intentions after Russia carried out another massive bombardment of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv just as Zelensky was heading to Trump’s Florida estate.
“I just had a very good and productive telephone call with President Putin of Russia,” Trump announced on his Truth Social platform.
The Kremlin gave a more pointed readout, saying that Trump agreed that a mere ceasefire “would only prolong the conflict” as it demanded Ukraine compromise on territory.
Trump is meeting Zelensky in the dining room of his Mar-a-Lago estate, where he frequently brings both foreign guests and domestic supporters.
Trump has made ending the Ukraine war a centerpiece of his second term as a self-proclaimed “president of peace,” and he has repeatedly blamed both Kyiv and Moscow for the failure to secure a ceasefire.
Zelensky, who has faced verbal attacks from Trump, has sought to show willingness to work with the contours of the US leader’s plans, but Putin has offered no sign that he will accept it.
Sunday’s meeting will be Trump’s first in-person encounter with Zelensky since October, when the US president refused to grant his request for long-range Tomahawk missiles.
And the Ukrainian leader could face another hard sell this time around, with Trump insisting that he “doesn’t have anything until I approve it.”
European allies
The talks are expected to last an hour, after which the two presidents are scheduled to hold a joint call with the leaders of key European allies.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who will join the call, wrote on X that the Russian attacks on Kyiv were “contrary to President Trump’s expectations and despite the readiness to make compromises” by Zelensky.
The revised peace plan, which emerged from weeks of intense US-Ukraine negotiations, would stop the war along its current front lines and could require Ukraine to pull troops back from the east, allowing the creation of demilitarized buffer zones.
As such, it contains Kyiv’s most explicit acknowledgement yet of possible territorial concessions.
It does not, however, envisage Ukraine withdrawing from the 20 percent of the eastern Donetsk region that it still controls — Russia’s main territorial demand.
The Ukrainian leader said he hoped the talks in Florida would be “very constructive” but stressed that Putin had shown his hand with a deadly drone and missile assault on Kyiv that temporarily knocked out power and heating to hundreds of thousands of residents during freezing temperatures.
“This attack is again Russia’s answer on our peace efforts. And this really showed that Putin doesn’t want peace,” he said as he visited Canada.
He also told reporters that he would press Trump on the importance of providing security guarantees that would prevent any renewed Russian aggression if a ceasefire were secured.
“We need strong security guarantees. We will discuss this and we will discuss the terms,” he said.
Ukraine insists it needs more European and US funding and weapons — especially drones.
Russian opposition
Russia has accused Ukraine and its European backers of trying to “torpedo” a previous US-brokered plan to stop the fighting, and recent battlefield gains — Russia announced on Saturday it had captured two more towns in eastern Ukraine — are seen as strengthening Moscow’s hand when it comes to peace talks.
“If the authorities in Kyiv don’t want to settle this business peacefully, we’ll resolve all the problems before us by military means,” Putin said on Saturday.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told state news agency TASS that Moscow would continue its engagement with US negotiators but criticized European governments as the “main obstacle” to peace.
“They are making no secret of their plans to prepare for war with Russia,” Lavrov said, adding that the ambitions of European politicians are “literally blinding them.”
