Russia’s sustained offensive in the eastern Donetsk region has intensified, the Ukrainian military said on March 21, as Japan’s prime minister arrived in Kyiv in a show of support that coincided with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow.
The commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, Oleksandr Syrskiy, said Russian assault groups have been attempting to advance toward the center of Bakhmut, the Donetsk region city that has been the focal point of a months-long raging battle that has prompted heavy losses to both sides.
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“Attempts by enemy assault units are trying to advance from the outskirts to the center of [Bakhmut], but the Defense Forces are working to destroy them 24/7,” Syrskiy wrote on Telegram.
Russian and Ukrainian forces have invested heavily in the battle for Bakhmut, even though analysts say the city — which has been reduced to little more than rubble — carried little strategic value.
Ukrainian defenders repelled 120 attacks focused primarily on Bakhmut, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said earlier in its daily report, adding that Russians also attempted advances in the directions of Avdiyivka, Lyman, Maryinka, and Shakhtarsk.
Russian forces shelled civilian and infrastructure targets in 11 settlements along the line of contact, the Ukrainian military said.
Ukrainian forces also repelled Russian attacks in Kupyansk, in the northern region of Kharkiv, it said.
Japan’s public television NHK broadcast video footage on March 21 of Fumio Kishida walking on the platform of a Kyiv train station accompanied by several people who appeared to be Ukrainian officials, including First Deputy Foreign Minister Emine Japarova.
The Japanese Foreign Ministry earlier said Kishida will visit Kyiv for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, with Japanese television showing the prime minister boarding a train at the Polish border town of Przemysl.
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Kishida will voice solidarity and support for Ukraine following Russia’s invasion more than a year ago, the ministry said in a statement.
Kishida’s meeting with Zelenskiy comes as Japan prepares to host a Group of Seven (G7) summit in May that the Japanese leader has said should exude a strong signal that international order and the rule of law must be upheld in opposition to Russia’s unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow launched in February of 2022.
Kishida’s arrival also coincides with Xi’s visit to Moscow to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has become increasingly isolated on the international stage because of the invasion.
Ukrainian officials have said they hope Zelenskiy will get a chance to talk with Xi by phone while the Chinese leader is in Moscow, but such a conversation had yet to be scheduled by midday on March 21.
IN PHOTOS: Ukraine continues to hold on to eastern city of Bakhmut despite the Wagner mercenary group claiming to have seized up to 70 percent of the ruined city.

Battle For Bakhmut Rages On As Russia’s Wagner Claims More Territory
Ukraine continues to hold on to eastern city of Bakhmut despite the Wagner mercenary group claiming to have seized up to 70 percent of the ruined city.
As Kishida was beginning his visit to Ukraine, Russia’s Defense Ministry said on March 21 that two of its strategic bombers flew over the Sea of Japan for more than seven hours.
The Tupolev Tu-95MS planes are capable of carrying nuclear weapons and Moscow regularly flies them over international waters in the Arctic, North Atlantic and Pacific as a show of strength.
Separately, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate said on March 20 that the Russia-installed chief of a notorious detention center in the city of Nova Kakhovka in the Russia-occupied part of the Kherson region has been “liquidated.”
The directorate said Serhiy Moskalenko, a native of the city who was accused of helping Russian troops detain and torture Ukrainians, was killed days earlier.
According to media reports, Moskalenko was killed in a car-bomb attack in the southern Ukrainian town of Skadovsk on March 19.
There have been several attacks, some deadly, against Ukrainian citizens who collaborated with Russian military forces after Moscow launched its ongoing invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on March 21 that he and European Parliament President Roberta Metsola have discussed steps to establish a special tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine.
During the call, Kuleba tweeted, he encouraged the European Parliament “to keep up its vital role in tackling impunity.”
In January, the European Parliament adopted a recommendation for the creation of a special tribunal to prosecute Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe voted unanimously to establish such a tribunal.