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Russian President Vladimir Putin has met with commanders in two parts of Ukraine that Moscow claims it has annexed, as Russian forces launched heavy artillery bombardments and airstrikes on the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.
The Kremlin said that during Monday’s visit, Putin had attended a military command meeting in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region and visited the national guard headquarters east of Luhansk.
Putin heard reports from the commander of the air force and the Dnieper army group, as well as other senior officers who briefed him on the situation in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in the south.
“It is important for me to hear your opinion on the developing situation, listen to you, exchange information,” Putin, 70, told the commanders.
Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk and Donetsk are four regions that Putin proclaimed last September after what Kyiv and its Western allies called a fake referendum. Russian forces only partially control the four regions.
Russian forces withdrew from the city of Kherson, the regional capital, last November, and have strengthened positions along the Dnipro River in anticipation of a Ukrainian counterattack.
While many Western leaders have traveled to Kyiv for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy since Russian troops invaded 14 months ago, Putin has rarely visited parts of Ukraine under Russian control.
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The Russian parliament has approved a new law to allow draft notices to be sent electronically and impose sanctions on those who do not comply. The Russian government denies the claims are on the brink of another mass mobilization, which led to the exodus last year.
Last month, he visited Crimea – annexed by Russia in 2014 – and the southeastern city of Mariupol in the Donetsk region.
Russia’s winter offensive failed to make much progress and its forces were bogged down in multiple battles in the east and south, where progress was slow and at great cost to both sides.
G7 condemns Russia’s moves in Belarus
Fighting has raged in and around Bakhmut in the Donetsk region for months, with Ukrainian forces continuing to withdraw despite regular claims by Russia to capture the mining town.
“Now, the enemy is increasing heavy artillery activity and the number of airstrikes, turning the city into ruins,” the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, said in a statement on Tuesday.
The capture of Bakhmut could be a stepping stone for Russia to advance on two major cities it has long wanted in the Donetsk region – Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.
The head of the mercenary group Wagner, which is leading the Russian effort to take Bakhmut, said this month that his fighters control more than 80 percent of the city. The Ukrainian military has denied this.
Russia says the “special military operation” in Ukraine, launched on February 24 last year, is necessary to protect its security from what it sees as a hostile and aggressive West.
Ukraine and its Western allies say Russia is waging an unprovoked war to seize the region.
A meeting of Group of Seven (G7) foreign ministers in Japan condemned on Tuesday Russia’s plans to place tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, a Moscow ally that borders Ukraine.
It was the first time Russia had said it would place nuclear weapons on another country’s territory since the end of the Cold War three decades ago, and appeared to raise the stakes, at least symbolically, in a more intense conflict with the West in the region. war in Ukraine.
In a communique issued at the end of the three-day meeting in Japan, the G7 foreign ministers said: “Russia’s irresponsible nuclear rhetoric and threats to deploy nuclear weapons in Belarus are unacceptable.”
“Any use of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons by Russia will have severe consequences.”
The G7 countries of the United States, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Canada have all imposed economic sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu was in Moscow on Tuesday as the countries look to expand military cooperation, raising concerns in the West. China has become Russia’s most important international partner in the 14 months since Moscow invaded Ukraine.
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