BRUSSELS - Ukraine’s Western backers pledged at a meeting on Tuesday to keep the huge amounts of ammunition and arms Kyiv needs flowing to the front line, as Russia battled for the devastated city of Bakhmut.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has knuckled down on his plea for Western aircraft, after securing commitments for tanks, air defence and precision missiles.

But allies meeting at Nato headquarters in Brussels remained focused on ensuring his forces have the ammunition, armoured vehicles and air defences they need on the ground to push back renewed Russian offensives.

Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said the priorities were to protect his country’s skies, bolster promised tank supplies and ensure ammunition stocks.

“Russia has lost, they’ve lost strategically, operationally and tactically and they are paying an enormous price on the battlefield,” top US general Mark Milley said, after the meeting of more than 50 countries.

“Until Putin ends his war of choice, the international community will continue to support Ukraine with the equipment and capabilities it needs.”

Ukraine’s Western supporters – spearheaded by the United States – have already supplied billions of dollars of arms to help Kyiv hold back Moscow.

Now, just under a year into the war, Nato says Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be starting a broader new offensive in east Ukraine.

“We see Russia introducing a number of new troops to the battlefield. Many of those troops are ill-trained and ill-equipped, and so their casualty rate has been really high,” US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin said.

He said Ukraine was looking to turn the tide on the battlefield to gain momentum, and he expected Kyiv’s forces to launch their own counter-offensive in the spring.

Bakhmut ‘meat grinder’

On the ground in eastern Ukraine, an AFP team heard heavy outgoing artillery fire towards Russian lines around the city of Bakhmut, the main target for Moscow’s attacks.

Ukrainian officials sparked speculation Kyiv’s forces could be getting ready to withdraw after a gruelling months-long battle by restricting access for aid workers.

But the head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group said the fight for the symbolic prize was far from over as Ukraine continues to defend house-to-house despite claimed Russian gains in nearby villages.

“Bakhmut will not be taken tomorrow, because there is heavy resistance and grinding, the meat grinder is working,” Mr Yevgeny Prigozhin said.

The fighting is consuming vast quantities of ammunition, straining stockpiles and industries on both sides of the confrontation.

Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg has warned that Kyiv’s current rate of expenditure was “many times higher” than the output in Nato countries.

Allies continue to raid their shelves for the rounds – especially 155-millimetre shells – that Ukraine is firing by the thousands each day.

Nato is scrambling to get its factories to pump out more, and allies are eyeing plans for joint weapons purchases, higher defence spending and longer-term contracts.

German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said Berlin had signed a deal with manufacturer Rheinmetall to restart production of ammunition for Gepard air defence guns sent to Ukraine.

France and Australia also announced they would produce 155mm artillery together.

Jets not ‘most urgent’

Mr Zelensky issued a powerful call during a trip to London, Paris and Brussels last week for Nato members to send fighter planes and longer-range missiles.

The Ukrainian leader won a commitment from Britain to train pilots but did not receive any firm promises that his forces will get Western planes.

But a senior US official said that sending jets was “not something we’re talking about around that table, right now, today”.

Slovakia has said it is willing to discuss sending Soviet MiG-29 planes to help replace losses to Ukraine’s current stocks.

Dutch Defence Minister Kajsa Ollongren said Kyiv had requested US-made F-16 jets from the Netherlands.

Mr Stoltenberg insisted “the issue of aircraft is not the most urgent issue now, but it is an ongoing discussion”.

“The urgent need now is to deliver what has already been promised,” he said.

Norway’s government became the latest to join a group of nations promising Leopard 2 tanks by offering eight vehicles. AFP