© Reuters. US President Joe Biden and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg together with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, Slovakian President Zuzana Caputova, Polish President Andrzej Duda and others pose for a group photo during the NATO Bucharest Nine (B9)
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By Pavel Polityuk and Yiming Woo
KIEV/NEAR BAKHMUT (Reuters) – Ukraine said its forces had repelled Russian attacks along the front line on Thursday on the eve of the anniversary of the war, as President Vladimir Putin came up empty-handed after a bloody winter offensive, spoke of the nuclear arsenal.
After a series of raucous speeches in the run-up to the anniversary of his invasion, Putin on Thursday announced plans to deploy new Sarmat multi-warhead ICBMs this year. Earlier this week, he suspended Russia’s participation in the START nuclear arms control treaty.
Russia would “pay more attention to strengthening the nuclear triad,” Putin said in comments published by the Kremlin, referring to land, sea and air-based nuclear missiles.
Ukraine and its Western allies have played down the nuclear talk as a diversion from a failed Russian military campaign on the ground, a year after Putin launched the biggest ground war in Europe since World War Two.
In recent weeks, Russia has carried out infantry attacks on frozen ground in battles described by both sides as the bloodiest of the war.
In a Ukrainian tank farm near Bakhmut, the small eastern town that has become Russia’s main target, constant explosions could be heard echoing in the distance.
“If we give up Bakhmut, everything else will get even more complicated. We cannot give up, under any circumstances. We will hold on,” Junior Sergeant Oleh Slavin, a tank operator, told Reuters. “We are in place for now and trying to get all the territory back.”
The US Embassy in Ukraine issued an alert to Americans in the country about “a growing and continuing threat of missile attacks” in Ukraine, including Kiev and the Kiev region.
Western officials said Russia had planned an offensive to capture new territory before the anniversary, using hundreds of thousands of reservists recruited in recent months to give Putin a victory to announce.
Moscow’s forces have made progress trying to encircle Bakhmut, but have failed to break through the Ukrainian lines to the north near Kremmina and to the south at Vuhledar, where they have suffered heavy losses attacking in open ground.
Ukrainian forces repelled 90 Russian attacks in the northeast and east in the past 24 hours, the army said Thursday morning. Ukrainian military spokesman Brigadier General Oleksiy Gromov said Moscow was trying to use its advantage in troop numbers to exhaust kyiv’s forces.
“The enemy, despite significant losses, does not give up attempts to encircle Bakhmut,” he said.
Three ambulance workers trying to evacuate people from their homes in the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine were killed by Ukrainian shelling on Thursday, a Russian-appointed official in the region said.
Reuters could not verify the deaths. There was no immediate comment from Ukrainian authorities.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a morning bulletin that its forces fired artillery at Ukrainian military units in areas such as Vuhledar in the southern Donetsk region. The bulletin did not mention Bakhmut.
Ukraine has closed some schools for the anniversary of the war in anticipation that Moscow may launch long-range missile strikes to mark the date. But kyiv officials said they believe Moscow no longer has the capacity for a dramatic show of force.
“Nothing unusual will happen. Usual (Russian) effort… A small missile attack is planned,” military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov told the Ukrainska Pravda news website. “Trust me, we’ve experienced this more than 20 times.”
‘GROSS FACTS’
Western powers have provided Ukraine with billions of dollars worth of weapons since Russia invaded. The United States and NATO have accused China of considering supplying weapons to Russia, Beijing’s strategic partner. China dismissed the accusation.
In New York, China’s deputy ambassador to the UN, Dai Bing, told the UN General Assembly that one year after the start of the war, “brutal events offer ample proof that the shipment of arms will not bring peace”.
Adding that “you can’t use nuclear weapons, you can’t fight nuclear war,” Dai said China was ready to help bring about peace.
With no major battlefield victories to report in time for the anniversary, Putin turned to nuclear rhetoric, announcing in a major speech on Tuesday that Russia would suspend its participation in the new START arms control treaty.
US President Joe Biden, who outshone Putin this week by traveling unannounced to Kiev and addressing a crowd in Warsaw, called the suspension of START a “big mistake” but said Wednesday: “I don’t understand who’s thinking of using nuclear weapons or something like that.”
The RS-28 Sarmat missiles, dubbed “Satan 2”, whose deployment Putin announced on Thursday, were first unveiled in 2018 and were supposed to have already been deployed last year.
Putin also promised to produce more hypersonic missiles, which fly too fast to be shot down.
Echoing similar remarks by Putin, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu accused the West of using Ukraine to try to carve up Russia, the world’s largest country by territory, but said any such attempt would fail.
Russia still holds nearly a fifth of Ukraine, despite losing territory in major battlefield reversals after failing to capture kyiv at the start of its “special military operation.”
Tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers on both sides are believed to have died in the war. Russian forces have destroyed Ukrainian cities and forced millions of refugees to flee.
The UN General Assembly is expected to mark the anniversary eve of the invasion by passing a resolution calling for an end to the conflict. Ukraine hopes to deepen Russia’s diplomatic isolation by securing the votes in favor of nearly three-quarters of the countries. Moscow, which says the invasion was justified by threats to its security, calls for partial text.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday denounced the invasion as a violation of the UN Charter.
“We have heard implicit threats to use nuclear weapons. The so-called tactical use of nuclear weapons is completely unacceptable,” Guterres said. “It is time to step back from the brink.”