At a joint press conference with General Mark Milley in Brussels, Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin said Ukraine would launch an offensive in the spring.
“Therefore, Ukraine wants to create battlefield conditions that would be favorable to them,” Austin said. “And so, we and all of Ukraine’s defense contact group partners are working hard to provide it with the armored capability… that it needs.”
On Tuesday, Russian troops shelled towns along the frontline in the eastern part of the Donetsk region.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s western allies have met in Brussels to discuss sending more weapons.
Ukraine’s military said on Tuesday it had repelled attacks at five sites in Luhansk and six in Donetsk in the past 24 hours, including the Bakhmut region. They also repelled an attack on a town in the Kharkiv region, the Ukrainian armed forces said in a statement.
Bakhmut, a city in the Donetsk region and the main target of the Russian invasion, finds itself in a difficult position.
“There is not a single square meter in Bakhmut that would be safe or out of range of enemy fire or drones,” regional governor Pavel Kirilenko said.
As the first anniversary of the Russian invasion approaches, the Kremlin has stepped up its operations in a large part of southern and eastern Ukraine. Kiev-based military analyst Oleksandr Musiyenko told Reuters that Russian actions in the Bakhmut, Vuhledar and Advievka region could mark the start of a major offensive.
Ahead of the meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Western countries must increase supplies of ammunition to Kiev.
“We see no signs that President Putin is preparing for peace. We see the opposite, it is preparing for a new war, new offensives and new attacks,” he told reporters.
Ukraine has also asked the West to provide fighter jets.
Stoltenberg said that in addition to discussing new weapons for Kiev, it is necessary to maintain the effectiveness of weapons already delivered. He said he was waiting for the plane problem to be resolved, but now Ukraine needed support on the ground.
Ukraine uses shells faster than the West can produce them.
Germany announced the signing of contracts with Rheinmetall to resume production of ammunition for the Gepard anti-aircraft guns, which it supplied to Kiev.
