Vladimir Putin will keep
Russia on the offensive in
Ukraine if he senses weakness from Kyiv , Volodymyr Zelensky has warned. “If he will feel some blood – smell that we are weak – he will push, push, push,” the Ukrainian president told the Associated Press. He added that if the fortress city of Bakhmut fell to
Russian forces , Mr Putin would “sell this victory to the West, to his society, to
China, to Iran”. Mr Zelensky said he has invited the Chinese president
Xi Jinping, a long-term Russian ally, to visit the battered country. It comes as the first
British tanks reached Ukraine , with the Ukrainian defence minister Oleksii Reznikov pictured giving the
UK a thumbs up as he took a ride in what he said was the first Challenger 2 main battle tank received from the British army. Mr Reznikov wrote on
Twitter that the tanks had “recently arrived in our country” and posted a video that showed him sitting in one of a long line of tanks in an open field, all of them flying Ukraine’s yellow and blue flag.