Ukraine said on Sunday that it repelled attempts by the Russian army to advance in the eastern region known as donbass and its surroundings, while Russia reported destroying several military targets, including arsenals, in the same area.
The Ukrainian military said in a statement that it contained a renewed Russian offensive near the cities of Bakhmut and Sloviansk in Donetsk province, one of the two that make up Donbass.
Regional authorities said other Russian military units tried again to raid the eastern city of Izium, but they were pushed back by the Ukrainian troops.
“The enemy is testing the positions of our armed forces, trying to break through them,” the governor of Kharkov province, where Izium is located, said on the Telegram messaging app.
“But it has not been successful and again suffered heavy human and equipment losses,” Governor Oleh Sinegubov said, the Europa Press news agency reported.
Russia launched its offensive in the Donbass last month after withdrawing the troops it had deployed around kyiv, the capital, and other regions of northern Ukraine.
United States and Ukraine They say that Russia withdrew from kyiv because it could not take the capital and was pushed out by the Ukrainian troops defending it.
Russia, by contrast, said it withdrew those troops because they had successfully completed the first phase of its post-invasion offensive on February 2, and to use them in the next one, which it described as the “liberation of Donbass”.
Russia said it did not want to take kyiv and that its offensive there was to reduce Ukraine’s ability to support its forces in Donbass and to keep them dispersed.
Region of greatest conflict
in the Donbass are the most experienced and well-equipped Ukrainian military units, fighting Russian-speaking separatists who control vast territories in Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk province for eight years.
The mayor of the city of Kharkovcapital of that province, which is not part of Donbass, said last Saturday that Russian forces had withdrawn from its surroundings after bombing it almost daily in three months of invasion.
The mayor did not say where the troops have withdrawn.
Kharkov It is an obligatory transit city to go to Donbass from almost any point in northern Ukraine from which you want to move troops, equipment or supplies to Lugansk or Donestk, by a single route that comes from France.
Kharkov borders Lugansk and Donetsk to the east. The next city on that route towards Donbass is Izium, which is still within Kharkov, on the provincial border with Donestk.
The Ukrainian Army He has said that Russian troops are committed to protecting their supply routes while launching artillery and air strikes against troops in Donbass, surrounding them from the north, south and east and trying to encircle them from the west as well.
Russia has hardly reported its overland advances in Donbass, but its pro-Russian separatist allies have claimed that they already control much more of Donetsk and Lugansk since the start of the joint offensive.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday it had carried out “high-precision” missile attacks on four ammunition depots in Donetsk in the last few hours.
The airstrikes also destroyed two missile launch systems and a radar, while 15 Ukrainian drones were eliminated in the surroundings of Donetsk and Luganskhe added.
