The Russian mercenary force Wagner needs 10,000 tons of ammunition per month to win the battle for the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, according to its chief Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Prigozhin made an emphatic demand for the delivery of artillery shells and cartridges in a video released on Saturday. The video allegedly shows him on the roof of a house in the largely destroyed city, about 1.2 kilometres from the administrative centre held by Ukrainian troops. Prigozhin proclaimed, "We will win."
The video showed many destroyed houses and streets, comparatively rare footage from the city that once had 70,000 inhabitants. Today, only a few thousand inhabitants remain.
The Wagner boss said no one in Moscow need have any concerns that he harboured political ambitions. Therefore, he added that the requested quantities of ammunition should be delivered to him without reservations. Russia's billionaires were also prepared to make these expenditures, he said. He put the monthly costs at half a billion dollars.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also wants to hold the strategically important city of Bakhmut at all costs.
Bakhmut has been contested since late summer. It is the main part of the defensive line established between Siversk and Bakhmut in the Donetsk region after the Russian conquest of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk.
If successful, the taking of Bakhmut could open the way for the Russian troops to take the major cities of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, which would bring them closer to their goal of conquering the entire Donetsk region.
The latest British intelligence update on Saturday suggested that Ukrainians are currently far from taking back Bakhmut.
The eastern part of the embattled city is now mostly under control of Wagner forces, but the west of Bakhmut is still held by the Ukrainian army, the report said.
The river Bakhmutka, which flows through the city centre, is now the front line.
In the Ukrainian-held west of the city, Kiev's forces have destroyed key bridges over the river, which runs through a strip of open ground 200 metres to 800 metres wide, the report said.
"With Ukrainian units able to fire from fortified buildings to the west, this area has become a killing zone, likely making it highly challenging for Wagner forces attempting to continue their frontal assault westwards," the report added.
But Ukrainian forces and their supply lines "remain vulnerable" to an encirclement of Bakhmut from the north and south.
Outside of Bakhmut, Zelensky mentioned several cities and regions that had been particularly affected by fresh Russian attacks in his nightly video address.
He said the Kharkiv region alone had seen 40 missile attacks since the beginning of the year. In the city of Kherson, three Ukrainians were killed by Russian fire on Saturday - on their way to do their shopping.
Meanwhile, cracks are showing in morale amongst Russian troops.
In a new video appeal, Russian reservists in the war zone in eastern Ukraine have deplored abuses in the force and called on President Vladimir Putin for help.
As commander-in-chief of the armed forces, Putin should see to it that commanders do their jobs, a disguised spokesman said in the video message recorded on Saturday and circulated on Telegram.
A total of a dozen unidentifiable uniformed men can be seen in the video. The group's spokesman complained of a lack of equipment and lack of leadership.
Other combatants as well as wives, mothers and sisters of soldiers have already complained of grievances in public messages.
The commanders were simply ignoring the president's decree and deploying unprepared units in the assault squads, the man complained.
Because of a lack of reconnaissance support and lack of communication with other units, reservists were dying and being injured senselessly, he said.
The man pointed out that the average age of his unit is 40, and many are in poor health. There was no medical fitness check at the beginning, he said. "We do not refuse to perform territorial defence duties. We refuse to take an unjustified risk - with machine guns against tanks, against mortars and snipers," he said.
"We know that we are not the only ones with such a request in the Dontesk region," he added. Putin should take care of the situation not on paper but on the ground, he demanded.
Putin has so far not visited troops in the combat zone - unlike Zelensky, who has made visits to the front.
A statement released by the European Union's foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell on Saturday drew attention to Russia's domestic oppression.
"The expansion of oppressive legislation, the absence of the rule of law, political misuse of judiciary, state-sponsored wartime propaganda and disproportionate use of force by Russian authorities against any sign of opposing views leave no space for pluralistic debates and public protest," he said in a statement.
Just this week, a father and daughter were persecuted for the young girl's "pro-peace drawing," and a student blogger sentenced, the statement said. The EU expressed its solidarity and support for those dissenting in Russia.
