The United States announced on Friday that it would grant Ukraine additional military aid, including equipment for offensive operations, at a time of conflicting reports about the fate of the city of Bakhmut in the Donbass region.

The Pentagon said it would transfer $400 million worth of military equipment to Ukraine to meet urgent security and defense needs.

The new military aid package to Ukraine consists mainly of ammunition, and for the first time includes tactical armored bridges that help tanks and armored vehicles cross rivers and trenches.

These armored bridges would help Ukraine launch a counterattack this spring to regain the lands that Russian forces controlled, especially with the start of receiving modern Western tanks, including the German Leopard tanks.

"Bridges are essential for combined arms operations. They allow armored vehicles to cross narrow rivers and trenches that would otherwise slow down an entire force," Jack Watling, a senior research fellow at the London-based Royal Unified Services Institute, told Reuters.

"More importantly, the bridges are only necessary for offensive operations, which shows that the United States is preparing Ukraine to continue reclaiming its territory," Watling said.

So far, the United States has provided Ukraine with $32 billion in aid, including advanced weapons such as the HIMARS missile system.

Biden (right) and Schultz confirmed from the White House that their countries continue to support Ukraine (Reuters)

Ongoing support for Ukraine

Simultaneously, US President Joe Biden said Friday that the United States and Germany are moving steadily to provide aid to Ukraine and strengthen the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Biden added, during his meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Schultz at the White House, that Berlin provided abundant support to Ukraine and provided great military support.

For his part, Schultz said that his country's work closely with Washington to provide aid to Ukraine was important, and that he had sent a message that the two countries would continue to support Ukraine at any cost.

While Kiev is seeking to obtain combat aircraft to stop the advance of Russian forces, the White House announced Friday that supplying Ukraine with F-16 fighters is not a major topic in the talks between the US president and the German chancellor.

For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky criticized what he described as concessions to unnamed European countries that make it difficult to achieve a quick victory for his country.

In a press conference with Latvian President Igils Levits in the city of Lviv (western Ukraine), Zelensky said that the Russians are bypassing the sanctions, with the help of European Union member states, as he put it.

Bakhmut Front

On the ground, the Russian paramilitary Wagner Group, with the support of the Russian army, continues to tighten the screws on the city of Bakhmut, north of Donetsk canton, in the Donbass region (eastern Ukraine).

The head of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said on Friday that Bakhmut - which had a population of 70,000 before the war - has become almost completely surrounded, and that there is only one way out for the Ukrainian forces.

In a video clip in which he talked about the battles, which Reuters said was filmed 7 kilometers north of Bakhmut, Bergogin called on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to withdraw his forces from the city as soon as possible.


Jan Gagin, the pro-Russian deputy governor of Donetsk, also called on the Ukrainian forces to withdraw from the city of Bakhmut, saying that the Ukrainian army secures the process of withdrawing elite forces and special forces using what it called mobilization forces.

The Russian military website, Ribar, reported that the Wagner Group is close to cutting off the last supply routes of the Ukrainian army in the strategic city, which is famous for its salt and gypsum mines. The Russian group accused the Ukrainian army of destroying the infrastructure to impede its progress in the city.

Wagner units reached the road linking Bakhmut and Chasov Yar after the retreat of the Ukrainian forces, and fierce battles are taking place on the eastern and southern axes of the city, which has been subjected to continuous Russian attacks since last summer, causing the destruction of large parts of it.

On the other hand, a commander in the Ukrainian National Guard described the situation in Bakhmut as embarrassing, pointing to round-the-clock battles.

Amid calls from some Ukrainian officials to withdraw from Bakhmut, the commander of the Ukrainian Army's 28th Mechanized Brigade, Yuri Madyar, said his reconnaissance unit had received an order to withdraw from the city.

For its part, Reuters said that the Ukrainian army is sending more reinforcements to the Bakhmut front, indicating that it does not intend to withdraw from the city.

The agency added that the Russian forces are bombing the roads that lead out of Bakhmut from the west, noting that the Ukrainian forces are working to repair the damaged roads.

fortified bunkers

On the other hand, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmyhal said that concrete bunkers have been constructed with sufficient depth to prevent missiles and drones from harming the power station distribution network.

Shmihal added that the stations were equipped with anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense systems to protect them from Russian attacks, and that his country is preparing, in cooperation with international courts, to submit a file to punish Russia, as well as Iran for providing Moscow with drones, according to him.

In the past months, Ukraine was subjected to waves of Russian bombing, targeting energy facilities in particular, which led to cutting off electricity and water to many areas of the country.