Diplomatic effort to end war in Ukraine in focus amid plans for new counteroffensive

KYIV - A diplomatic effort to end the war in Ukraine came back into focus this week even as the United States pledged more weapons to help Kyiv prepare for a counter-offensive, and Russian forces mounted relentless attacks in the eastern city of Bakhmut.

After weathering a

punishing, months-long assault in eastern Ukraine,

its military commanders have said a counter-offensive is not far off but have stressed the importance of holding towns, including Bakhmut, and inflicting losses in the meantime.

“The question of our counter-attack is under active discussion by American and European political circles – perhaps to excess,” said Mr Serhiy Zgurets, director of the publication Defense Express.

Ukrainian diplomats will have to convince allies that a single advance pushing Russian troops back will not be sufficient for victory, he wrote on the Espreso TV website.

“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 was due in China

on Wednesday after he and US President Joe Biden agreed that they would seek to engage Beijing to hasten the end of the war.

China and Russia signed a “no limits” partnership accord in early 2022, just weeks before President Vladimir Putin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine.

China has refrained from criticising Mr Putin’s decision and has touted a peace plan for Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will head to Poland,

which has taken in more than a million Ukrainian refugees over the past 13 months of war. The Nato member has also played an important role in persuading other Western powers to supply battle tanks and other weaponry to Ukraine.

The US on Tuesday

unveiled US$2.6 billion (S$3.4 billion) more in military assistance

for the government of Mr Zelensky, including three air surveillance radars, anti-tank rockets and fuel trucks. The US has now provided more than US$35 billion in military aid to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion.

“The main thing is not to lose time, not to lose the chance we have. Act now, help now,” Mr Zelensky told the US National Governors Association by video link. “Ukrainians act so that Americans don’t have to fight – and together we gain new strength for our countries.”

The Russian Embassy in the United States accused it of wanting to drag out the conflict for as long as possible, Russian news agency Tass said.

Tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers on both sides have been killed in what Russia calls a “special military operation” to rid the neighbouring nation of Nazis.

The West calls the war an unprovoked assault to subdue an independent country.

The battle for Bakhmut has been one of the bloodiest of the conflict, with heavy losses on both sides and the small city largely destroyed.

The founder of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force Yevgeny Prigozhin recently claimed his forces had captured the mining and logistics hub.

Ukraine has

repeatedly denied Russians control the city,

while acknowledging they have taken at least half of it.

“In the Bakhmut sector, there was no let-up in enemy actions aimed at storming the city of Bakhmut. At least 20 enemy attacks were repelled here alone over the past 24 hours,” the Ukrainian general staff said in a report on Facebook.

Near the town of Niu-York, 50km south of Bakhmut, Ukrainian soldiers in muddy dugouts described repelling Russian attacks on a daily basis. “They creep in, fire and try to exhaust us. Then they evaluate the situation and can move forward for a little more,” the commander of an infantry unit, who gave his nom de guerre as “Bodia”, told Reuters. “Meanwhile, we try to let them get closer to us so that we can hit them more precisely.”

Reuters could not verify the battlefield reports.

Finland joins Nato

Ukraine on Tuesday welcomed the

accession to the Nato alliance of Finland,

which shares a 1,300km border with Russia, 13 months after Russia invaded Ukraine, partly in response to what Moscow called the alliance’s aggressive expansion eastward.

“I congratulate all the people of Finland,” Mr Zelensky said in his evening address. “Russian aggression clearly proves that only collective guarantees, only preventive guarantees, can be reliable.”

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine prompted the Finns – after decades of strategic non-alignment – to seek security under the umbrella of Nato’s collective defence pact, which states that an attack on one member is an attack on all.

Russia, which has watched successive waves of Nato enlargement since the Cold War ended three decades ago, has also said it would strengthen its military capacity in its western and north-western regions in response to Finland’s accession.

Separately, the Kremlin said Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko would travel to Moscow on Wednesday for two days of talks with Mr Putin. REUTERS