Zelensky says will to keep fighting hinges on battle of Bakhmut
Mike Brest
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has once again emphasized the significance of retaining control of the city of Bakhmut.
While the eastern Ukrainian city poses minimal strategic importance for Russia’s overall goals, the political will of the Ukrainian people could be at stake, the president said.
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“We can’t lose the steps because the war is a pie — pieces of victories. Small victories, small steps,” he told the Associated Press in an interview published Tuesday.
“Our society will feel tired” if Ukraine loses Bakhmut, Zelensky said. “Our society will push me to have compromise with them.”
He made it clear that he wasn’t feeling this pressure yet despite his warning that it could happen.
Bakhmut has become the scene of a slow-grinding battle where Russia has slowly made minimal gains but has faced more resistance as they’ve gotten closer to the city center. Both sides have experienced significant casualties in the battle.
Conversely, he predicted Russian President Vladimir Putin would “sell this victory to the West, to his society, to China, to Iran,” adding, “if he will feel some blood — smell that we are weak — he will push, push, push.”
Russian troops now occupy roughly two-thirds of the city, according to the Institute for the Study of War’s latest update on the war.
Earlier this month, Zelensky said the Russian president “needs at least some victory — a small victory — even by ruining everything in Bakhmut, just killing every civilian there,” adding, “put[ting] their little flag” on Bakhmut would help “mobilize their society in order to create this idea they’re such a powerful army.”
It has been more than 13 months since Russia invaded Ukraine, and Ukrainian forces have been able to hold off Russian aggression much longer than experts expected. Once they held the line during the infancy of the war, the United States and Western allies began providing billions of dollars of military aid, which they were either familiar with or received training on before it got to the front lines.
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President Joe Biden has led the Western world in fortifying Ukraine’s defenses, declaring that this aid will continue for as long as necessary. But there are members of both political parties, minority opinions, who believe the U.S. should stop aiding Ukraine, and Republicans who have declared or are expected to run for the GOP presidential nominee for the 2024 election have expressed differing stances on whether to continue helping Ukraine.
“The United States really understands that if they stop helping us, we will not win,” Zelensky said in the interview.