On Monday, Ukraine announced that it had made some progress in the eastern and southern regions of the country, registering modest advances in its grueling counter-offensive launched two months ago to reclaim these territories from Russian occupation.
In the east, the battle for Bakhmout has been raging for a year now. Although the Russians took it in May after months of deadly fighting, the situation has reversed, and today it is troops from Moscow who are in a defensive position in this devastated city, which is now a symbol of this war.
“In the Bakhmout sector, 3 km2 were liberated last week. A total of 40 km2 have already been liberated on the southern flank of the Bakhmout sector,” announced Ganna Maliar, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister. On the southern front, where Ukrainian forces have been seeking for weeks to find the weak points of the Russian defense lines, made up of minefields, trenches and anti-tank booby traps, Ms. Maliar remained vague, nevertheless reporting progress. .
“We cannot reveal the details, but we have accomplished these actions. To entrench yourself there, you have to dislodge the enemy and liberate the territory,” she added.
Backed by substantial Western military aid, Ukraine launched a vast counter-offensive in June to drive the Russian army out of the territories it occupies. kyiv prepared for the operation for months, hoarding resources and training recruits. During this time, the Russians have built powerful defenses on their side, so that the Ukrainian army advances only very painfully.
Ukrainian leaders keep saying that the fighting is tough, but that the first results are there and that they need more armaments, in particular long-range missiles to ravage the Russian rear and reconquer more territory. This is the message heard again by German Finance Minister Christian Lindner, on a visit to kyiv on Monday.
“I pointed out that Ukraine urgently needs armaments, these are anti-aircraft defenses and long-range weapons. We are counting on our partners to understand the situation and that it cannot be postponed, “said the mayor of kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, after receiving Christian Lindner.
Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, repeats over and over again that the counter-offensive has already failed. And Moscow has launched its own offensive in the northeast, now threatening the city of Kupiansk, liberated by kyiv last September. On Thursday, the Ukrainian authorities ordered the evacuation of dozens of villages in the face of the Russian advance in this part of the Kharkiv region. Russia is also continuing its campaign of bombing Ukraine, claiming to destroy warehouses and military barracks.
But on the ground, it is also restaurants, hotels, homes that are destroyed daily, causing deaths and injuries. An eight-year-old boy is to be buried Monday in the Ivano-Frankivsk region in western Ukraine, located hundreds of kilometers from the front and rarely bombed.
According to the town hall, nurseries and kindergartens also suffered damage. Windows, balconies of several buildings, as well as cars parked nearby were also damaged and two fires broke out. Still in the Black Sea, Ukraine denounced on Monday the firing of Russian warnings in the direction of a cargo ship the day before, which was to go to the river port of Izmail, one of the main exit routes for Ukrainian agricultural products since Moscow terminated the grain export agreement in July.
“These actions illustrate Russia’s deliberate policy of threatening the freedom of navigation and the safety of merchant shipping in the Black Sea,” Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
