UPDATE ON UKRAINE & RUSSIA WORK
Ukraine President Insists that his Forces will win.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy insisted his forces must win the battle for Bakhmut in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, as doubts continue over whether Ukraine should spend more manpower and resources on defending the besieged city in Donetsk. "As always, today I was in touch with our commanders, with intelligence [officers]. It is very hard in the east - very painful," Zelenskyy said in his nightly address. He insists that he must destroy the enemy's military power - and we will destroy it, he also said ,that the defense of settlements big and small, such as Bilohorivka and Avdiivka or Bakhmut and Vuhledar, could determine what Ukraine's future looks like.
There are doubts over the merits of defending Bakhmut, a city said to be almost completely surrounded by Russian forces and mercenary units. Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said Ukraine was suffering losses among reserves it intended to use in planned counteroffensives against Russian forces, expected in late spring.
Meanwhile On the other hand,
Russian parliament votes to censor criticism of mercenary groups, Russia's lower house of parliament, the State Duma, voted on Tuesday to approve an amendment that would punish those found guilty of discrediting "volunteer" groups fighting in Ukraine, extending a law that censors criticism of Russia's armed forces. The amendment is seen as a move to "protect" fighters working for the private Wagner Group, a mercenary force, which is leading Russia's campaign for the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut
The bill needs to be approved by the parliament's upper house before passing to President Vladimir Putin for final approval Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin has welcomed the proposals - an expansion of Russia's wartime censorship measures introduced after Moscow invaded Ukraine. Prigozhin asked parliament in January to ban negative media reports about his men by amending the criminal code, an idea Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin quickly said he backed.
Under Russia's current laws "discrediting" the army can be punished by up to five years in prison, while spreading knowingly false information about it can attract a 15-year jail sentence. Russian prosecutors have already opened more than 5,800 cases against people for discrediting the armed forces, the OVD-Info rights group says, while authorities have also used the laws against spreading false information to hand down lengthy jail sentences to long-time Kremlin critics.
