And on Friday, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III announced that Ukrainians would soon begin training, for the first time, on American M1 Abrams tanks — an important step to getting the sophisticated weapon to the battlefield. But the reinforcements still fall short of what even American military planners have assessed that Ukraine needs to make the most of an offensive expected to begin in coming weeks to retake more territory captured by the Russians. Classified military assessments dating to February and March, from leaked documents, show dire gaps in what allies had pledged to Ukraine and what, at least by then, had been delivered. www.nytimes.com/...x Ukraine Situation Report: The Brutal Wait For Ukraine’s Counteroffensivehttps://t.co/GJmYs5UkfA — The War Zone (@thewarzonewire) April 22, 2023Outside the city’s ruins, fighting continues along the trench lines. Francis Farrell (@francisjfarrell) of The Kyiv Independent brings us to the harrowing situation at Bakhmut’s “zero line” for Ukrainian soldiers while embedded with the storied Ukrainian 10th Mountain Assault Brigade to the north near Soledar.

Source: Washington Post April 23, 2023 04:41 UTC