Ukraine admitted on Sunday that Russian forces were advancing in four areas of the eastern front line where “hard fighting” is taking place, but assured that its troops were advancing in the south, about a month after the launch of their counteroffensive.
“The enemy is advancing in the areas of Avdiivka, Mariinka, Lyman,” Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Ganna Maliar wrote on Telegram. “It is also advancing in the Svatovoe sector.”
“The situation is quite difficult,” she continued. “There is fierce fighting everywhere.”
Sixteen months after the start of the Russian invasion, Ukraine says it is continuing its counter-offensive launched about a month ago and which has so far failed to trigger a decisive advance, and urges its Western allies to hasten the promised military aid, in the run-up to a NATO summit in Vilnius.
Asked about the Black Sea Grain Initiative, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations also said that he saw “no reason” to extend the agreement which allows Ukrainian grain exports despite the conflict, and which must expire in July.
For Gennady Gatilov, the agreement reached in July 2022 has turned away from its humanitarian aims to become “a commercial project”, mainly supplying “high-income countries”, he said in an interview with Russian media Izvestia. released on Monday.
And the corridors used “are regularly used by Ukrainians to launch military drones”, added the diplomat.
“What we see today gives us no reason to accept the continuation of the status quo.”
On June 21, Kiev said it was not “very optimistic” about a possible renewal of the agreement, after Moscow had once again threatened to withdraw from it, believing that certain clauses were not respected.
On Sunday, Ukrainian officials announced that they had been the victim of a new overnight aerial attack by explosive drones on kyiv, the first in 12 days.
“All enemy targets in the airspace around Kiev have been detected and destroyed,” said Serhii Popko, head of the capital’s military administration.
The Ukrainian Air Force, in a separate statement, said it had shot down eight Iranian-made Sahed explosive drones, and three cruise missiles.
The Deputy Defense Minister added on Sunday that Ukrainian troops were advancing with “partial success” on the southern flank of the eastern city of Bakhmout, as well as near Berdyansk and Melitopol in the area. south of the front.
In the south, she said Ukrainian forces were encountering “intense enemy resistance” as well as minefields, and were advancing only “gradually”.
Ukrainian troops “are working continuously and tirelessly to create the conditions for as rapid an advance as possible,” she wrote.
The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army Valery Zalouzhny had estimated, in an interview published Friday by the Washington Post, that the forces of kyiv were restrained by a lack of armament. He had in particular demanded the delivery of American F-16 fighter planes.
“They are necessary, there is no other solution,” he told the American daily.
He also lamented a lack of artillery in the face of the deluge of Russian fire.
On Tuesday, a Russian strike against a restaurant in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, seriously injured around 60 people, including writer Victoria Amelina. The Ukrainian author died on Saturday, the NGO PEN Ukraine announced, bringing the death toll from the bombing to 13.
“By the time the decisions are made, it is obvious that many people are dying, every day, and in large numbers,” insisted Mr. Zaloujny.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, receiving Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Saturday, had meanwhile criticized Kiev’s Western partners on the pace of implementation of the training of Ukrainian airmen, accustomed to Soviet MiGs and Sukhoi, in the piloting of F-16.
“There is no training mission schedule. I think some partners are dragging their feet. Why are they doing it? I don’t know,” he said.
US Chief of Staff Mark Milley, from Washington, replied that the United States and its allies are doing their best to send what Ukraine needs.
Delivering F-16s or ATACMS tactical missiles to them is “on the table, but no decision has been made yet,” he said.
The counter-offensive “is going slower than we predicted”, he also felt, but “war is like that”.
03/07/2023 04:52:42 – Kiev (Ukraine) (AFP) © 2023 AFP
