JAKARTA - Ukraine said on Tuesday that the past 24 hours were the deadliest in the war so far for Russian troops, as Moscow continued an intensive winter attack in the east by deploying tens of thousands of newly mobilized troops to the battlefield.
Ukraine's claims cannot be independently verified, while Russia has also claimed to have killed large numbers of Ukrainian troops in recent weeks.
However, the fighting statement is the deadliest so far in accordance with a description from both sides of an escalating campaign in a close-range ditch war, which has left a snowy battlefield in eastern Ukraine filled with corpses.
The Ukrainian military increased the number of Russian soldiers killed by 1,030 overnight to a total of 133,190, describing the increase as the highest in the war so far. Meanwhile, Russia said it had caused 6,500 casualties in Ukraine in January.
War yang akan memasuki tahun kedua saat ini berada di titik penting, dengan Moscow berusaha untuk mendapatkan kembali inisiatif, sementara Kyiv menunggu tank Barat untuk melakukan serangan balik pada tahun 2023 nanti.
After Russia failed to capture the Ukrainian capital last year and lost its territory in the second half of 2022, Moscow is now fully utilizing its first-mobilized hundreds of thousands of troops since World War Two.
In recent weeks, Russia has boasted of its first lead over half a year. But progress is still gradual, with Moscow not yet occupying a single major population center in its winter campaign, despite thousands of people being killed.
Fighting focused for months around Ukraine-controlled Bakhmut in eastern Donetsk Province. Russia has made clear progress to surround it from the north and south, but Kyiv says its 16.
Moscow also launched a further southern attack on Vuhledar, a Ukrainian-controlled stronghold on the highlands at a strategic intersection between eastern and southern front lines.
Separately, since the new year Western countries have pledged hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles to Ukraine, to provide fire and mobility to break through Russian lines, reclaiming occupied territory later this year.
The new US weapons package is expected to include long-range rockets, which will give Ukraine the ability to strike Russian supply lines in all areas occupied on mainland Ukraine and parts of the Crimean peninsula.
But, it will take months before they arrive. Moscow says Western weapons supplies will only expand and prolong the conflict.
"The US and its allies are trying to extend the conflict as much as possible," Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday, during a conference with military officials.
"To do this, they have started supplying heavy offensive weapons, publicly urging Ukraine to seize our territory. In fact, such a move drags NATO countries into conflict and could lead to unpredictable escalation rates," he explained.
The use of the phrase "our territory" appears to refer to four Ukrainian provinces claimed to have been annexed by Russia last year, as well as Crimea, which was seized from Ukraine in 2014.
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