The assessment was provided by GUR official Andrii Cherniak on Tuesday, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
Cherniak told the Ukrinform news agency: "The Defence Intelligence sees that carriers of nuclear weapons that are ground-based, air-launched and sea-based are located in the territory of temporarily occupied Crimea at the moment.”
He added, as quoted by the Ukrainska Pravda website: “It refers to vessels, submarines, aircraft and ground systems that can carry out nuclear attacks. Russia potentially has this opportunity."
Wagner chief admits failure to seize Bakhmut
The owner of Russia’s Wagner Group of mercenaries, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has admitted his forces have been unable to break through Ukrainian defences in the eastern city of Bakhmut, blaming inadequate provision of equipment and ammunition by Russian authorities.
Prigozhin’s remarks were reported by the Institute for the Study of War, a US think tank, on Tuesday night.
Ukrainian forces in Bakhmut on Tuesday, January 3, 2023. Photo: PAP/Abaca/Diego Herrera Carcedo
Russian assault on Bakhmut ‘highly attritional’
In its latest analysis of the war in Ukraine, the ISW wrote: “Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin attempted to justify the Wagner Group’s lack of progress in Bakhmut, partially supporting ISW’s assessment that Russian forces in Bakhmut are culminating.”
The Washington-based think tank noted that Russian state media outlet RIA Novosti “amplified a December 31 interview with Prigozhin on January 3 in which Prigozhin stated that Wagner Group forces in Bakhmut are unable to break through Ukrainian defenses in Bakhmut.”
In the interview, Prigozhin said that Wagner's offensive operations in Bakhmut “are highly attritional” because each house in the city is a “fortress,” that Ukrainians “have defensive lines every 10 meters,” and that Russian forces “must clear building-by-building,” according to the ISW.
'Effectively no gains’
The Institute for the Study of War said this was the first time Prigozhin “has framed Wagner forces in Bakhmut as making effectively no gains.”
In October, Prigozhin claimed his forces were advancing 100–200 metres a day in the Bakhmut area, according to the ISW.
Moreover, “the Wagner Group conducted information operations to assert that Wagner Group forces exclusively made gains in Bakhmut without the assistance of other Russian elements in December,” the US think tank reported.
Russian defence ministry takes flak
The ISW assessed that “Prigozhin is likely setting information conditions to blame Wagner Group's failure to take Bakhmut on the Russian Ministry of Defense or the Russian industrial base.”
The US experts said that “Wagner Group soldiers told Prigozhin that they were unable to break through Ukrainian lines in Bakhmut" due to insufficient supplies of armoured vehicles and ammunition.
According to the ISW, such statements seek “to absolve the Wagner Group and Prigozhin of personal responsibility by attributing their failure to capture Bakhmut to the larger Russian resource allocation problems that Russian and Ukrainian sources have been increasingly discussing since late December.”
Russians ‘marching over corpses of their fellow soldiers’
Meanwhile, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, Valery Zaluzhny, said that “the situation in the Soledar-Bakhmut-Maiorsk area remains the most complicated.”
Writing in a Facebook post on Tuesday, Zaluzhny added: “The Russians are basically trying to advance by marching over the corpses of their fellow soldiers there, but the Defence Forces of Ukraine are making tremendous efforts to hold back the offensive,” as quoted by the Ukrainska Pravda website.
‘Russia unlikely to make breakthrough’
The British defence ministry said on Tuesday that “it is unlikely Russia will achieve a significant breakthrough near Bakhmut in the coming weeks.”
This is partly due to the fact that “Russian offensive operations in the area are now likely being conducted at only platoon or section level,” according to British analysts.
UK PM reaffirms support for Ukraine
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky held a phone call with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Tuesday, news outlets reported.
Sunak reaffirmed support for Ukraine as the two men discussed further defence cooperation, their statements said, according to Britain’s The Guardian newspaper.
Wednesday is day 315 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, Ukrainska Pravda, understandingwar.org, UK Ministry of Defence, The Guardian