Ukraine makes gains

The leader of Russia's Wagner private army said yesterday Ukraine's long-awaited counteroffensive was already underway and making gains on the outskirts of the eastern city of Bakhmut, while Kyiv said its main effort had not yet started.

Ukrainian operations were "unfortunately, partially successful", Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose force of mercenaries and convicts recruited from prison has led Russia's main military campaign in Bakhmut, said on social media.

Kyiv says it has pushed Russian forces back over the past two days near Bakhmut in small-scale local assaults, but a counteroffensive involving tens of thousands of troops and hundreds of new Western tanks has yet to begin.

"We still need a bit more time," President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview with European broadcasters released earlier yesterday.

Ukrainian forces had already received enough equipment from Western allies for their campaign, but were waiting for the full complement to arrive to reduce casualties, Zelensky said.

"With [what we have] we can go forward and be successful," he said. "But we'd lose a lot of people. I think that's unacceptable."

Prigozhin, a once secretive figure who has lately issued daily statements denouncing the Russian command for failing to adequately supply his fighters, said Zelensky was being "deceptive" and the Ukrainian offensive was already underway.

While Prigozhin's forces have been fighting in the centre of the city, he has said Ukraine is making gains on its flanks in areas defended by regular Russian troops, some of whom have fled.

The war in Ukraine is at a turning point, with Kyiv poised to unleash its new counterstrike after six months of keeping its forces on the defensive, while Russia mounted a huge winter offensive that failed to capture significant territory.

Prigozhin said on Tuesday that a Russian brigade had fled from the trenches, giving up a swathe of land southwest of Bakhmut. A Ukrainian unit claimed to have routed the brigade, destroying two of its companies.

The commander of Ukraine's ground forces said on Wednesday that Russian forces had retreated in places by as much as 2 km at the front line.

The Russian defence ministry has not commented on those reports, but in remarks overnight Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov acknowledged that the war was "very difficult". He said he had no doubt that Bakhmut "will be captured and will be kept under control".

A Western official said yesterday that Britain has supplied Ukraine with Storm Shadow long-range cruise missiles.

CNN first reported the decision and said Britain had received assurances from the Ukrainian government that these missiles would be used only within Ukrainian sovereign territory and not inside Russia.

In Brussels, Nato's top military official said the war would increasingly be a battle between large numbers of poorly trained Russian troops with outdated equipment, and a smaller Ukrainian force with better Western weapons and training.

Admiral Rob Bauer, a Dutch officer who is chair of Nato's military committee, said Russia was deploying T-54 tanks - an old model designed in the years after World War Two.

In the latest report, the governor of Russia's Bryansk region bordering Ukraine said a drone had hit a fuel storate depot. No one was hurt. Kyiv does not comment on such incidents.

The US envoy to South Africa yesterday accused the country of having provided military support to Russia despite its professed neutrality in the Ukraine war, local media said.

Ambassador Reuben Brigety reportedly said the US was "confident" weapons and ammunition had been loaded onto a Russian freighter in Cape Town in December, adding: 'The arming of the Russians is extremely serious,  and we do not consider this issue to be resolved."

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said yesterday the Black Sea grain export initiative should be extended for a longer period and expanded after talks finished in Turkey.

"Negotiations in Istanbul on the functioning of the Grain Initiative have been completed," Kubrakov said on Facebook, without giving details of the outcome.

"The Ukrainian delegation once again stressed that the Grain Initiative should be extended for a longer period and expanded. This will give predictability and confidence to both the global and Ukrainian markets."