The presidents of Ukraine and Russia each handed out medals on Tuesday: President Volodymyr Zelensky traveled to the besieged jap metropolis of Bakhmut to acknowledge Ukrainian troopers as artillery thundered in the space, whereas President Vladimir V. Putin honored Russian occupation figures and propaganda leaders contained in the protected, gilded halls of the Kremlin.
The distinction captured the intractability of a conflict that started 300 days in the past, with Mr. Zelensky flashing contemporary defiance and Mr. Putin signaling no letup in his assault.
While Russian forces are digging in throughout a lot of the 600-mile entrance after a sequence of battlefield defeats, Moscow has stepped up its assaults on Ukrainian infrastructure with wave after wave of missile and drone strikes aimed toward plunging the nation into darkness.
On the battlefield, Russia’s repeated assaults on Bakhmut, a metropolis that was as soon as house to 70,000 in the jap Donbas area, have been relentless and catastrophic, evoking pictures of the wastelands left after the deadliest battles of World War I.
Mr. Zelensky set out in the early morning for maybe his most harmful journey to the entrance traces for the reason that preventing started in February, touring greater than 440 miles from the capital. Wearing a plain army-green jacket, he presented medals to soldiers in combat uniform, and posed for images with the troopers as he saluted their “superhuman” braveness.
“The east is holding out because Bakhmut is fighting,” he told the troops, including: “In fierce battles and at the cost of many lives, freedom is being defended here for all of us.”
Mr. Zelensky continued his reward for Ukraine’s defenders in his nightly address, in which he famous that he had left Donetsk.
Mr. Putin’s parallel awards ceremony featured extra pomp and circumstance — and fewer danger. It got here hours after Mr. Putin launched a video message addressed to the workers of Russian safety businesses in which he warned that the state of affairs in Russian-held elements of Ukraine was “extremely difficult.”
And it appeared geared at displaying Ukraine and its Western allies that Mr. Putin was decided to proceed his struggle, regardless of what American officers say are Russian casualties now exceeding 100,000 lifeless and wounded.
Those honored on the Kremlin on Tuesday in a televised occasion included a few of Russia’s most high-profile, pro-war figures. There have been the Russian-installed leaders of the 4 Ukrainian areas that Mr. Putin illegally annexed in September, regardless of a lot of the realm nonetheless being beneath Ukrainian management. There was Semyon Pegov, a extensively learn Russian conflict blogger who was injured in Ukraine. And there was Margarita Simonyan, the hard-line editor of one of many Kremlin’s most vital propaganda retailers, the RT tv community.
“Thank you for wresting our people out of the bloody mouths of these man-eaters, despite the pain and the blood,” Ms. Simonyan stated on the ceremony, in an obvious reference to the Kremlin’s false declare that Ukraine has been perpetrating a genocide in opposition to Russian audio system. “And we will help you whack these man-eaters as much as you demand it from us.”
It was a reminder that Russia’s powerful propaganda apparatus, like Mr. Putin himself, is more and more acknowledging Russia’s struggles on the entrance, although it continues to hide the extent of the army’s losses. At the identical time, it’s presenting the conflict as existential — claiming that the true enemy is a NATO that seeks Russia’s destruction — and making an attempt to put together Russians for additional sacrifice.
On Tuesday, Mr. Putin appeared unwilling to cede the highlight to Mr. Zelensky. Russian media outlets issued reviews saying that the Russian chief had visited the “special military operation zone” — the Kremlin’s time period for the conflict zone — final Friday.
Mr. Putin, in a quick speech on the finish of the ceremony on Tuesday, stated these have been “difficult, unusual times,” and praised Russian troopers as “heroes.”
“When a country or even every person develops, moves forward, it always overcomes certain difficulties on this path,” Mr. Putin stated. “But today, it’s indeed being accompanied by particular challenges.”