the ukrainian forces they resisted in fighting at home home to the advance of Russian troops in the city of Severodonetsk, the final battle for control of the Lugansk region, in eastern Ukraine, while the pro-Russian militias were already approaching within gunshot of the city of Sloviansk, in the neighboring Donetks region.
“Fighting is already taking place in the streets of Severodonetsk. The enemy is advancing,” regional governor Serhiy Gaidai told 1+1 television about the situation in the city, the last major city in the Luhansk region that has not fallen into the hands of Russian forces.
He assured that the “critical infrastructure of the city almost one hundred percent destroyedwhile 90% of the houses have suffered damage and, among them, 60% show a dilapidated state”.
“The city is full of Russian corpses, the streets are burning; in the future, this can lead to the development of infections,” Gaidái said.
The governor ordered the suspension of the evacuation of civilians of the city after today that the French journalist of the BFMTV network Frédéric Lecrecq-Imhoff was killed by shrapnel on a bus that was on its way to pick up evacuees.
Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky on a visit, in Kharkov, Ukraine. Xinhua photo
“The fighting has reached maximum intensity. Russian troops are firing along the entire front line and are trying to strike with artillery deep into our defense,” the spokesman for the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said today at a press appearance. Oleksandr Motuzianik.
Along with this, he added, Russian forces are attacking on several fronts, but the “fiercest battles take place in the Severodonetsk, Bakhmut and Kurakhiv directions.” “We are optimistic about the situation, but it remains difficult,” Motuzianik admitted.
The Ukrainians attack in the south
Meanwhile, the Territorial Defense General Staff of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic affirmed that its militias, with the support of the Russian Army, they continued to advance towards Sloviansk and they occupied two towns, 10 and 20 kilometers northeast of that city of just over 100,000 inhabitants.
The capture of Sloviansk is key to launching the assault on Kramatorsk, a major railway junction and the main Ukrainian military stronghold in the east of the country, since it is just 10 kilometers away.
If in the east of the country the situation is becoming more complicated for the Ukrainian forces, in the south they have managed to launch some counterattacks and even force the Russian troops to withdraw in some sectors.
“In the course of an offensive by the Defense Forces the enemy suffered casualties and withdrew from the town of Nikolaika in the Kherson region,” the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported today.
A Ukrainian tank in the Donetsk region. Reuters photo
According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), the attacks launched by Ukrainian forces in the Kherson region have altered Russia’s plans to occupy southern Ukraine.
More heavy weapons
Ukraine insists on its requests to the West to more heavy weaponry neededin particular, tanks, artillery and rocket launchers, to offset Russia’s current superiority in war equipment.
Although the United States and some of its allies have provided the Ukrainian military with 155-millimeter howitzers and other weapons, the kyiv government assures that the volumes of these deliveries are insufficient to change the course of the war.
The Russian Defense Ministry said today that several 155-millimeter howitzers supplied by Italy to Ukraine were destroyed.
The position of the Ukrainian military operating these towable howitzers was detected from the air and destroyed by artillery firethe portfolio said in a statement posted on Telegram.
The Russian Army assured that it corroborated the results of its attack by means of a drone and published the corresponding video.
Moscow has repeatedly warned that any arms supply to Ukraine will be considered as a “legitimate target” of the Russian Army.
As fighting intensifies in eastern Ukraine, Russia concentrates troops in Russia’s Kursk region, border with the Ukrainian region of Sumyin northeastern Ukraine.
“Due to the situation in the border areas, the Ministry of Defense has sent a large number of troops to the region,” Kursk Governor Román Starovoit said today, quoted by the Interfax agency, at a meeting of the regional Executive.
He added that “additional weapons have arrived and continue to arrive in the region: artillery and rocket launchers”.
“All this, to guarantee the life and safety of the inhabitants of the region,” Starovoit stressed.
Source: EFE
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