Russia divides its efforts between Donetsk and Kharkiv, scenes of bloody fighting in eastern Ukraine, and Kherson, in the south, where Ukrainian incursions on the left bank of the Dnieper River forced the Russians to change the head of forces there. front to stop the Ukrainian advance.
The situation in eastern Ukraine continues to be tense: as reported in its daily war report by the General Staff of the Ukrainian Army, Russia tried to regain ground on the Bakhmut front, in the eastern region of Donetsk, where Ukrainian defenders repelled three attacks .
The American Institute of War Studies (ISW) confirmed, based on geolocated images, advances by the Ukrainian Army northwest of the town of Kurdiumivka, located about 10 kilometers south of Bakhmut.
The Russian Ministry of Defense, for its part, remained silent on the matter and limited itself to reporting intense attacks by its artillery in towns south of Bakhmut, which would have caused nearly 170 casualties to enemy forces.
Equally tense is the situation in Avdiivka, which Russia has been trying to surround for three weeks and into which it is launching infantry groups “without support from artillery fire”, according to the ISW.
In the northeastern region of Kharkiv, fighting is centered on the Kupiansk front. The Russian Defense Ministry claimed to have repelled five enemy attacks in the vicinity of the town of Skinkivka, while the Ukrainian General Staff said it repulsed two Russian attacks.
In this context, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, met today with the flat major of the Army, in which the situation on the front, and in particular in Kúpiansk, Avdivka and Jerson was debated.
Ukraine took advantage of the intense fighting in Donetsk and Kharkiv to take the initiative on the left bank of the Dnieper River, occupied by Russia and belonging to the southern region of Kherson, before which the Russian General Staff made the decision to change the commander of the forces. that operate in the sector. According to British military intelligence, this shows that the Russian command is “increasing pressure on Russian forces defending this area.”
London confirmed that Colonel General Mikhail Teplinski – who had been commander of the Russian airborne forces – replaced his predecessor, Oleg Makarevich, at the head of the Dinéper group.
He recalled that Teplinski has experience in commanding operations in this area and was in charge of Russia’s withdrawal from the right bank of the Dnieper in November 2022, when the Ukrainian offensive forced the Russian Army to abandon the city of Kherson. This shows, according to the British, that “for Russian forces it remains a high priority objective to maintain the Kherson region”, annexed by Russia in September 2022.
While intense fighting continues on the front, Russia does not stop its attacks against the Ukrainian rear. The head of the military administration of the city of Kherson, Román Mrochko, denounced on Telegram that the city had been subject to a massive attack against the central district that destroyed several warehouses and damaged a dozen cars. “So far we have information about an injured person, a 34-year-old man with shrapnel damage to his legs,” he said.
The head of the Military Administration of the region, Oleksandr Prokudin, denounced another attack that cost the life of a man who was aboard a vehicle destroyed by a Russian projectile.
Ukraine’s main energy company, DTEK, today denounced on Telegram the attack against a thermal power plant in the Donetsk region that occurred on Monday night. In turn, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported in its war report that it had destroyed several drone and unmanned boat manufacturing workshops in the town of Malodolinske, in the Odessa region, on the shores of the Black Sea.
