Ukraine destroys surveillance tower in Russian border region, military says

The Ukrainian defense of the city of Bakhmut has “achieved its goals” and has been “a great strategic success” for the Ukrainian army, presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said.

Ukraine had two main goals in defending Bakmut: buying time to replenish its forces and inflicting heavy losses on Russian armies, Polodyak said. The decision to make the defense of the key area a priority was a joint strategy devised by the country’s military branches with the approval of the Ukrainian president, he said.

“As for the defense of Bakhmut, it achieved its goals by 1000%. The military implemented the plan to destroy the enemy’s main combat-ready grouping on the one hand and enabled the training and training of tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops to prepare for a counterattack on the other,” Podolyak said.

Podolyak cautioned that a decision to withdraw has not been made yet, rather that there has been a consensus among military leaders to continue defending the city.

“This is an advantage of the democratic model, which allows us to choose and make the best decisions. A lot of critical questions are asked by the president himself. Since the final decision, as commander-in-chief, is made by the head of state, the president feels very personally responsible,” he added.

Ukrainian officials have lashed out against Moscow after a video showed one of the country’s soldiers, allegedly in Russian captivity, being executed seemingly by Russian soldiers. 

The video shows an unarmed soldier in Ukrainian combat fatigues smoking a cigarette near what appears to be a fighting position. The man is then shown pulling the cigarette from his mouth, blowing out the smoke and can be heard saying “Slava Ukraini” (Glory to Ukraine), before fighters off camera fire several shots at him. 

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba blamed Russia and said it was additional “proof” that Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine was “genocidal.”

“It is imperative that [Prosecutor] Karim Khan QC launches and immediate [International Criminal Court] investigation into this heinous war crime,” he tweeted on Monday. “Perpetrators must face justice.”

The Ukrainian President’s Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak also said the incident was a “war crime.”

The Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets said he has shared the video with international partners as “evidence of yet another Russian war crime.”

“The execution of a captured Ukrainian soldier is a violation of the Geneva Conventions. It is a manifestation of rascality and ignobility,” Lubinets wrote on Telegram.

CNN has not been able to independently verify who the executed POW is, where he was shot and who shot him.

A 14-year-old Ukrainian refugee girl has died after being found unconscious on a beach in South Devon, England, the Devon and Cornwall Police said in a statement Monday. 

The girl’s death is being treated as “unexplained” and police are asking anyone who may have CCTV or doorbell footage to share it with police to assist in the investigation. 

“We were called on the evening of Saturday 4 March with reports of a 14-year-old girl missing from the Dawlish area,” said detective inspector Becky Davies of Devon and Cornwall Police. 

Davies said the deceased girl was a Ukrainian national who was living in the Dawlish area. “Contact has been made with the Ukrainian Embassy and The Home Office are also aware of this incident,” he said. 

Police confirmed to CNN that the girl and her mother are Ukrainian refugees. Police had not released the name of the girl at the time of this writing. 

“This death is currently being treated as unexplained and enquiries continue as to the circumstances surrounding this death. Our thoughts are with the family and friends of the teenage girl at this tragic time,” Davies added. 

Officers remain in the Dawlish area and are undertaking house-to-house enquiries and attempting to secure any CCTV or doorbell footage that could be available, police said. 

Police said no additional information about the case is being released at the moment.

There are more than 160,000 Ukrainian refugees in the UK, according to the latest UN data.

NATO intelligence estimates that for every Ukrainian soldier killed defending Bakhmut, Russian forces have lost at least five, a military official with the North Atlantic alliance told CNN on Monday.

The official cautioned the five to one ratio was an informed estimate based on intelligence.

The official spoke to CNN on the condition they remain anonymous because they are not allowed to discuss this intelligence. Despite the favorable ratio, they also said Ukraine was suffering significant losses defending the city. 

Ukrainian officials have repeatedly claimed they were inflicting heavy losses on Russia as Moscow tried to take Bakhmut.

The Institute for the Study of War also said Russia’s efforts to capture Bakhmut had significantly deteriorated its capacity for additional offensives.

“The Russian military will likely struggle to maintain any subsequent offensive operations for some months, giving Ukraine a chance to seize the initiative;” it said on Monday.

The Ukrainian military said they had destroyed a surveillance tower in the Russian border region of Bryansk, using a Kamikaze drone. 

The rare acknowledgment by Ukrainian forces comes after an incursion by Russian volunteers fighting for Ukraine into the same Russian region last week.

Russian security officials claimed that a small Ukrainian armed group had crossed the Russian border into the southern Bryansk region, allegations dismissed by Kyiv as a “classic deliberate provocation” by the Kremlin.

The Security Service of Russia (FSB) said in a statement via state media agency RIA Novosti on Thursday that the agency was carrying out operations following an “armed Ukrainian nationalists who violated the state border” in the district. President Vladimir Putin later described the incident as a terrorist attack, and a local official said two civilians were killed.

At the time, CNN could not independently verify the Russian claims, and local media had not carried any images of the supposed incidents, any type of confrontation or an alleged raid reported by Russian authorities.

CNN’s Anna Chernova, Olga Voitovych, Nathan Hodge and Rob Picheta contributed to this post.

One of Ukraine’s top military chiefs, Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of the country’s land forces, visited troops in Bakhmut on Sunday, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense said on Monday.

“March 5, Colonel General Oleksandr Syrsky, Commander of the Land Forces, once again visited the units defending Bakhmut and the outskirts of the city,” the briefing read. “According to him, the fighting for Bakhmut has reached the highest level of intensity.”

Syrskyi wouldn’t elaborate on a potential withdrawal but said Ukrainian forces had inflicted serious losses on Russia over the past several months.

“All this time, the enemy’s attempts to capture the city have been defeated by the resilience of our soldiers,” he said. “Our defenders inflicted significant losses on the enemy, destroyed a large number of vehicles, forced Wagner’s best assault units to fight and reduced the enemy’s offensive potential.”

Syrskyi organized and lead the defense of Kyiv, successfully driving back Russian forces that had nearly encircled the Ukrainian capital at the beginning of Russia’s invasion.

He has paid regular visits to frontline units in the Donbas and elsewhere, including Bakhmut. His previous visit to the city was at the end of last week.

Wagner fighters were seen planting the Russian mercenary group’s flag on a T-34 tank monument in the eastern part of the city of Bakhmut.

The footage, geolocated by CNN, shows four fighters running toward the monument. They took down a Ukrainian flag that was mounted on the tank’s barrel and planted the Wagner group’s flag on top of the tank.

The fighters are then seen holding their guns up into the air and setting the Ukrainian flag on fire.

Some more context: The T-34 was a tank used by Soviet forces during the Second World War and the monument is dedicated to the forces that liberated the city from Nazi Germany.

It is located 500 meters (more than 546 yards) away from the Bakhmutova river, suggesting Ukrainian forces may have withdrawn from the eastern part of Bakhmut, consolidating their positions west of the river.

The German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall, who produces the Leopard battle tank among other heavy arms, is hoping to open a tank factory in Ukraine, CEO Armin Papperger has told a German newspaper.

Papperger, as quoted by the “Rheinische Post” daily over the weekend, said negotiations to build such a plant are ongoing and a decision could come within two months. 

A possible plant would cost about 200 million euros, or about $214 million, and about 400 tanks could be built annually, Papperger told “Rheinische Post.” 

Air defense systems could be in place to protect such a facility, he said.

Papperger added that a new version of the fully digitized battle tank “Panther” could be built in Ukraine.

Some background: Rheinmetall is the biggest arms manufacturer in Germany with about 25,000 employees. 

In January, the arms manufacturer said it had 139 Leopards in stock, but of those, only 29 Leopard 2s would be combat-ready for delivery in the spring of this year. Those 29 have already been theoretically pledged to other countries as part of a tank swap.

The rest of the stock needed to be prepared over a longer period of time, according to the company.

A Rheinmetall spokesperson told CNN that of the rest of the stock — 88 Leopard 1 tanks — a few could be deliverable in about nine months, and the rest in a year.

Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky has said that the country’s forces will continue to defend Bakhmut amid continued Russian efforts to take the eastern city.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has played down the strategic significance of Bakhmut, saying that the city has “more of a symbolic value.”

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