Crucial Week Ahead for Ukraine to Secure Victory, Zelensky Says

 The next week will be "especially important for Ukraine's defense and its advance towards victory," Zelensky said in his nighty address on Apr. 2.

 "We are already preparing planned events and decisions," he added.

 The President noted that the situation in the Donetsk direction remains particularly difficult. He described the areas near Avdiivka, Maryinka and Bakhmut as "especially hot."

 "Especially Bakhmut! It's especially hot there today! Around Bilohorivka and Kreminna as well as all our other cities, towns, and villages of Donbas," the President said.

 "The resilience of everyone is the strength of the whole of Ukraine, helping everyone there is helping the whole of Ukraine," he added.

 On Monday morning it was also announced that Zelensky is to make an official visit to Warsaw on Wednesday, one of his few trips outside his nation battling Russia's invasion.

 NATO member and neighbour Poland is a key ally in Kyiv's effort to defend itself, and has hosted many Ukrainians fleeing the war.

 "This is an official visit but there will also be an element of a public nature," the head of the international policy office, Marcin Przydacz, told Polish radio station RMF FM, noting that Zelensky would also meet Ukrainians living in Poland.

He has also reported that Poland has supplied Ukraine with several MiG-29 fighter jets. 

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If this information is confirmed, it would be the first time such a weapon had been used since Russia invaded in February 2022.

"Ukraine will undoubtedly seek further support. Several MiGs have already been sent," Przydacz said.

 At the same time, he did not specify the certain number of planes Ukraine received in the first batch.

 Last week several of Ukraine's top military officials expressed optimism about Ukraine's progress on the front. Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov in an interview with, the Estonian news outlet ERR on Mar. 26, said that Ukraine would launch a counter-offensive during April-May which would confront Russian forces in several directions at once.

 At the same time, Ground Forces commander, Colonel-General Oleksander Syrsky, reported that Russian forces were running out of manpower to carry out assault operations and advance in some sectors of the front line.

 "Our defense forces continue to defend Bakhmut, inflicting heavy losses on the enemy in the east. In some areas, the enemy is noticeably panicky because time is against them and they have less available manpower to storm our positions," said Syrsky on Friday, Mar. 31.

 The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), an American think tank, estimated on Tuesday Mar. 28 that, in the previous week, Russian forces had captured only an additional five percent of the ground they hold in Bakhmut and that they currently occupy roughly 65 percent of the city.

 However, ISW also concluded that Ukrainian forces were well positioned to regain the initiative and launch counter-offensives in critical sectors of the current front line.

 German Economy and Energy Minister Robert Habeck also made a surprise visit to Kyiv on Monday, April 3, to discuss Ukraine's post-war reconstruction.