Russia Ukraine war updates, Russian fighter jet shot down near Bakhmut
Ukraine said its armies shot down a Russian jet near Bakhmut while repulsing multiple shots by the Kremlin’s forces to capture the eastern city, which has become an essential prize in the broader battle.
Bakhmut, a small town in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk area, has become a central battlefield in Russia’s invasion of the country. After nearly six months of brutal war, the fight there takes on rising symbolic and strategic matters for both sides.
Ukraine defends its most precious town:
Ukraine’s armies have held out in the city against overwhelming Russian firepower after the Kremlin’s troops started targeting the town last summer.
Also read: Constitutional crisis in Pakistan, so more political crisis
If Russia were to follow in capturing Bakhmut, Moscow could start building international aid for a negotiated compensation that would force Ukraine into improper compromises, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the Associated Press.
If Russia were to capture Bakhmut, Putin would “sell this win to the West, to his community, to China, to Iran,” he told the AP. The Ukrainian president even invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to come to Ukraine, continuing that the leader of China had stopped short of expressing full support for the Russian battle in Ukraine during his trip to Moscow last week.
Ukraine’s air force told early Wednesday that its sharpshooters had shot down a Russian Su-24 bomber on the Bakhmut front a day before.
“The enemy makes further tries to capture the city of Bakhmut. However, our soldiers bravely hold the city while repulsing multiple enemy attacks,” the Ukrainian military’s general team said in its morning update on the war.
Russian soldiers, led by the paramilitary Wagner Group, have dedicated massive firepower and waves of recently recruited warriors to capture Bakhmut in recent months.
The war has levelled much of the city and imposed heavy losses on both flanks, causing several Western military critics to challenge the wisdom of Ukraine continuing to hold the city.
Source – WSJ
