MOSCOW, March 17. /TASS/. The loss of the city of Artyomovsk (Ukrainian name - Bakhmut) to Russian forces may produce a situation where other cities that are now under the control of the Ukrainian troops will also become vulnerable, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba has said.
"If Bakhmut falls, then other cities will follow," Kuleba said in an interview to the Ukrainian service of the BBC, published on Friday. "We must fight in Bakhmut as long as we can physically."
Kuleba noted that the situation in Artyomovsk was "emotionally very complicated" for Kiev because of the Ukrainian army’s losses.
He claimed once again that the Western allies were not providing military support to Ukraine quickly enough, because, he argued, they were not ready for a conflict similar in scale to the First World War. Kiev would like the allies to act faster. Kuleba said that Ukraine needed artillery shells from the West in order to send them to Ukrainian units in Artyomovsk first of all.
Artyomovsk, a crucial transport hub, is located in the Kiev-controlled part of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). Fierce fighting for control of the city is underway. According to the latest data, Russian forces have blocked or taken control of all paved roads to the city, while the nascent spring mud season is complicating the logistics of supplying the Ukrainian army with ammunition and personnel.