Ukrainian troops holding Bakhmut line demand weapons as world powers meet

"Give us more military equipment, more weapons, and we will deal with the Russian occupier, we will destroy them," said Dmytro, a serviceman standing in the snow near Bakhmut, echoing a plea by his president to the Munich conference.

Nearly one year into the invasion, President Vladimir Putin's troops are intensifying assaults in the east.

Ukraine is planning a spring counter-offensive, for which it wants more, heavier and longer-range weapons from its Western allies.

Europe's worst conflict since World War Two war has killed tens of thousands, uprooted millions from their homes, pummeled the global economy and made Putin a pariah in the West.

He says he is fighting for Russia's security against an aggressively expanding NATO alliance, but Kyiv and its allies cast the invasion as a colonial-style land grab in Ukraine, formerly part of the Russian-dominated Soviet Union.

On the freezing battlefield, Ukrainian servicemen showed a visiting journalist the benefits of Australian-provided Bushmaster armored vehicles in an area where Russian soldiers have become bogged down in months of fighting to take Bakhmut, which Russia's Wagner mercenary group is attacking.