Live updates on the Ukrainian war: Kyiv asserts that more than 1,000 Russians perished in Bakhmut in the previous week, and the first lady of Ukraine begs for more armaments.
Bakhmut continues to be a flashpoint in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia; the commander of the Ukrainian armed forces described the situation there as “difficult,” despite the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, saying that the city’s fierce fighting is having a significant impact on Russia’s forces.
Since March 6, Zelenskyy claimed, Ukrainian forces have “managed to destroy more than 1,100 hostile combatants.”
According to reporters on the ground, Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi, the head of Ukraine’s ground forces, stated on Monday that “Wagner’s assault units are moving from multiple directions, aiming to break through the lines of our troops and push to the central areas of the city.”
In other news, the U.K. reported on Monday that the Wagner Group may no longer be able to recruit in Russian prisons due to persistent disagreements with the Russian defense ministry and may now be refocusing recruitment efforts on free Russian individuals.
According to an intelligence bulletin from the British Ministry of Defence, since the beginning of March 2023, Wagner has established outreach teams headquartered in sports facilities in at least 40 places across Russia and has presented career lectures in classrooms.
During the fiscal year 2024, the Biden administration’s proposed budget calls for $886 billion in defense spending.
A little over $1.7 billion of the defense budget will go toward helping Ukraine repair its vital infrastructure while fighting a war with Russia. Additionally, the budget will pay for multi-year contracts for missiles and other weapons to restock American stockpiles.
The State Department and USAID are each allocated $63.1 billion in the federal budget.
The financing will “enable us to continue promoting U.S. national interests, leading the world in confronting global challenges, and continuing support for the people of Ukraine,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a separate statement.
“The shortage of trained workers who can assure the crucial functioning of the nuclear power plant is rising catastrophically,” Ukraine’s military wrote in an update posted on Facebook and translated by NBC News.
In the early stages of their full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces took control of the largest nuclear power facility in Europe.
According to the Ukrainian military, “the Russian occupants hired employees without the necessary training and expertise at the nuclear power facility.”
“All of this can have unexpected results,” the group continued.
