Extract from ABC News
Russian President Vladimir Putin has compared the Ukraine invasion to the fight against Nazi Germany in a speech to mark the 80th anniversary of the Soviet victory in the battle of Stalingrad, as he again repeated unfounded claims of Nazism.
Key points:
- Mr Putin lambasted Germany for helping to arm Ukraine, saying he was ready to draw on Russia's entire weapons arsenal
The European Commission president says the EU will have a new package of sanctions in place soon
- A Russian missile attack on apartment buildings in Ukraine's Kramatorsk, has killed at least three people
In a fiery speech in Volgograd, known as Stalingrad until 1961, Mr Putin lambasted Germany for helping to arm Ukraine and said, not for the first time, that he was ready to draw on Russia's entire arsenal, which includes nuclear weapons.
"Unfortunately we see that the ideology of Nazism in its modern form and manifestation again directly threatens the security of our country," Mr Putin told an audience of army officers and members of local patriotic and youth groups.
"Again and again we have to repel the aggression of the collective West. It's incredible but it's a fact: we are again being threatened with German Leopard tanks with crosses on them."
Russian officials have been drawing parallels with the struggle against the Nazis ever since Russian forces entered Ukraine almost a year ago.
Ukraine — which was part of the Soviet Union and itself suffered devastation at the hands of Hitler's forces — rejects those parallels as spurious pretexts for a war of imperial conquest.
Stalingrad was the bloodiest battle of World War II, when the Soviet Red Army, at a cost of over 1 million casualties, broke the back of German invasion forces in 1942-3.
Mr Putin evoked what he said was the spirit of the defenders of Stalingrad to explain why he thought Russia would prevail in Ukraine, saying the World War II battle had become a symbol of "the indestructible nature of our people".
"Those who draw European countries, including Germany, into a new war with Russia, and … expect to win a victory over Russia on the battlefield, apparently don't understand that a modern war with Russia will be quite different for them.
"We don't send our tanks to their borders but we have the means to respond, and it won't end with the use of armoured vehicles, everyone must understand that."
Mr Putin also laid a wreath at the eternal flame of the memorial complex to the fallen Red Army soldiers, where he led a moment of silence for those who died in the battle.
Russian arms supply to increase
Mr Putin's veiled threats came after the country's former president Dmitry Medvedev said Russia's arms suppliers would "significantly" increase their deliveries in 2023 to help its forces inflict a "crushing defeat" on Ukraine.
"Our armed forces regularly receive full supplies of various types of missiles. The delivery of all kinds of military hardware will increase significantly in 2023," Mr Medvedev, who is deputy chairman of the powerful Security Council, said in a post on social media.
Western capitals and military analysts have said Moscow could be running short of some military supplies, having pounded Ukraine with millions of artillery shells and thousands of missiles since it invaded last February.
Officials in Moscow deny those claims and say they have all the resources needed to execute what it still calls a special military operation in Ukraine.
EU pledges more aid for Ukraine
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged EU leaders during talks in Kyiv on Thursday to slap more sanctions on Russia, as Moscow's forces pressed their offensive in eastern Ukraine and fired missiles into the city of Kramatorsk near the front line.
One missile destroyed an apartment building late on Wednesday in Kramatorsk, killing at least three people and wounding 18, police said, while Russia said on Thursday it had struck US-made rocket launchers in the area.
The head of the European Commission pledged more EU aid for Ukraine as she arrived in Kyiv by train along with more than a dozen other senior EU officials for two days of talks seen as key to Ukraine's hopes of one day joining the bloc.
"Russia is paying a heavy price [for the war] as our sanctions are eroding its economy, throwing it back by a generation. We will keep turning up the pressure further," Ursula von der Leyen later told a joint news conference with Mr Zelenskyy.
The West has imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia since its invasion of Ukraine on February 24 last year, aiming to cripple its ability to continue its invasion.
Mr Zelenskyy called for more sanctions, saying the pace had "slightly slowed" of late and that Moscow was adapting to them.
"This is a joint European task to reduce Russia's ability to evade sanctions. And the faster and better this task is accomplished, the closer we will be to defeating the aggression of the Russian Federation," he said.
Ms Von der Leyen said the EU would have a new package of sanctions in place for the first anniversary of the war, the biggest armed conflict in Europe since World War II.
The team from Brussels will discuss sending more arms and money to Ukraine, increasing access for Ukrainian products to the EU, helping Kyiv cover energy needs, strengthening sanctions on Russia and prosecuting Russian leaders for the war.
Russia making gains as grim date looms
Earlier, Mr Zelenskyy gave another bleak assessment of the battlefield situation in eastern Ukraine, where Russian forces have been making incremental gains as the first anniversary of Moscow's invasion looms.
In Kramatorsk, a Russian Iskander-K tactical missile struck at 9:45pm local time on Wednesday, police said.
"At least eight apartment buildings were damaged. One of them was completely destroyed," they said in a Facebook post.
"People may remain under the rubble."
In its daily update, Russia's defence ministry said on Thursday it had destroyed US-made HIMARS and MLRS launch pads in an attack "in the region of Kramatorsk". It made no reference to the strike on the residential building.
Kramatorsk is about 55 kilometres north-west of Bakhmut, currently the main focus of fighting in eastern Ukraine.
Russia, determined to make progress before Ukraine receives newly promised Western battle tanks and armoured vehicles, has picked up momentum on the battlefield and it announced advances north and south of Bakhmut, which has suffered persistent Russian bombardment for months.
"The enemy is trying to achieve at least something now to show that Russia has some chances on the anniversary of the invasion," Mr Zelenskyy said in a video address late on Wednesday.
Russia launched its bloody, full-scale invasion almost one year ago on February 24, 2022.
Bakhmut and 10 towns and villages around it came under further Russian fire, the Ukrainian military said.
Russian forces are pushing from both the north and south to encircle Bakhmut, using superior troop numbers to try to cut it off from re-supply and force the Ukrainians out, Ukrainian military analyst Yevhen Dikiy said.
"The enemy is able to use its sole resource, which it has in excess — its men," Mr Dikiy told Espreso TV, describing a landscape to the north-east of Bakhmut "literally covered with corpses".
Ukraine and its Western allies say Moscow has taken huge losses around Bakhmut, sending in waves of poorly equipped troops, including thousands of convicts recruited from prisons as mercenaries.
ABC/wires
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