Western battle tanks begin to arrive as Russian forces remain unable to break through Ukrainian defenses.
Ukraine’s defences have held up against dozens of daily Russian ground assaults along the eastern front during the 57th week of the Russia-Ukraine war, while promised tanks and fighter jets have arrived to arm Ukraine’s expected counteroffensive.
To this gathering strength, Russian President Vladimir Putin has replied with a nuclear threat widely dismissed as evidence that he did not have an adequate conventional military response.
Bakhmut, the eastern city levelled by months of fighting, remains key.
Assaults stretched from Kupiansk in Kharkiv province to Avdiivka in southern Donetsk.
But the toughest fighting seemed to take place in Bakhmut, where geolocated footage suggested Wagner Group mercenaries made advances from March 28 to 29.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said Russian forces had met “with partial success”.
Footage provided by Russian newspaper Ria Novosti suggested Wagner mercenaries had captured the AZOM industrial complex within Bakhmut.
But Ukraine’s defenders were not evacuating.
“We are holding the Bakhmut fortress,” wrote Ukraine’s commander of ground forces Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi.
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