Some neighborhoods in the city of Bakhmut (Ukraine), in which barely 6,500 inhabitants remain out of the 70,000 it had before the war, were reduced to ruins. On the other hand, the United States announced a new assistance package, of 2,200 million dollars in weapons, which includes rockets that could almost double the range of Ukrainian artillery.
Ukraine was targeted on Saturday, February 4, by numerous Russian bombardments and repelled an incursion into the besieged city of Bakhmut, the day after Western powers promised it longer-range weapons to resist the invasion.
“The enemy is gathering in some areas and is concentrating its greatest efforts on offensive operations towards Kupiansk, Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Novopavlivka,” all in the east, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said.
Avdiivka, on the front line of the Donetsk region, was hit by a “massive” artillery shelling in the morning. Kramatorsk, some 100 km to the north, had been hit overnight by rocket fire, Ukrainian authorities said.
In the last 24 hours, only in the southern province of Zaporizhia, bombardments against “civilian infrastructures” in 26 towns were recorded, according to the same sources.
Russian artillery also harassed the city of Kherson, which Russian troops had seized at the start of the war nearly a year ago but was retaken in November by a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Failed raid on Bakhmut
Ukrainian border guards said they had repulsed “an attack by the invaders” and forced them to withdraw from a suburb of Bakhmut.
The confrontation occurred when an aerial reconnaissance mission detected that “the enemy was preparing to attack” that town that the Ukrainians have defended tooth and nail for weeks.
“This week, the Russian occupation forces deployed all their efforts to penetrate our defenses and encircle Bakhmut and launched a major offensive in the Lyman sector. But they failed, thanks to the resistance of our soldiers,” Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said.
“No one will hand over Bakhmut […] We will fight as much as we can” to defend that “fortress”, declared the Ukrainian president on Friday, Volodymyr Zelensky.
Some neighborhoods of this city, in which barely 6,500 inhabitants remain out of the 70,000 it had before the war, have been reduced to ruins, reporters from the AFP.
Odesa, a port city on the shores of the Black Sea, suffered a blackout that affected 500,000 residents.
The incident was due to a breakdown in a power plant that has recently been bombed several times by Russia, said the head of the regional administration, Maksym Marchenko.
The head of the Ukrainian presidential administration, Andrii Yermak, announced an exchange of 116 Ukrainian prisoners for 63 Russians.
Embargo on Russian oil products
Western powers promised to deliver far-reaching weapons to Ukraine on Friday and the European Union (EU) backed the former Soviet republic’s bid to join the bloc at a summit in kyiv.
The United States announced a new assistance package, of 2,200 million dollars in weaponswhich includes rockets that could almost double the range of Ukrainian artillery.
These are Ground-Launched Small Bombs (GLSDBs), small-diameter missiles that can fly up to 150 km and thus threaten Russian positions behind the front lines.
But “the delivery of the GLSDB will not take place for several months,” said the US Ministry of Defense.
France and Italy will hand over a MAMBA medium-range surface-to-air anti-aircraft defense system to help Ukraine “defend itself against attacks by drones, missiles and Russian planes,” the French Ministry of Defense said.
And Portugal said it was willing to send German Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.
Since the start of the invasion, on February 24, 2022, the Western powers applied economic and financial sanctions against Russia.
A European Union (EU) embargo on Russian refined oil products exported by sea will come into force this Sunday.
A measure that, according to Moscow, will have a “negative” impact because it will “imbalance even more” the markets.
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With information from AFP
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