The President of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelenski, tries to relaunch his army’s counteroffensive on the southern front, where Ukrainian troops reportedly reached the enemy’s first defensive line in an attempt to reach the sea and isolate the Crimean peninsula.
“The closest circle and all the attention on a single issue: our offensive,” Zelenski commented today on Telegram, a message in which he stressed that he discussed with the high command of the army the next “steps”, the supplies and the actions of the enemy .
Zelensky chaired a special meeting of his headquarters. And it is that time is pressing. The counteroffensive that began on June 4 has good weather as an ally, but summer does not last forever.
One of the participants was Valeri Zaluzhni, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, who also updated Mark Milley, the US Chief of Staff, on the progress of operations.
In this regard, the deputy commander of the Ukrainian forces in the south of the country, Serguí Kuzmin, highlighted today that his troops had advanced several hundred meters near the strategic village of Robotyne, in the heart of the Zaporizhia region.
“We have reached the front line of the occupiers. The front line is very difficult, but our soldiers are advancing,” he said, according to the daily Ukrainska Pravda.
Kuzmin stressed that such operations are targeting the city of Melitopol, the capture of which would pave the way for the Ukrainians to clean their boots in the Azov Sea.
“We are making progress, although this advance is slowed down by the minefields and the lack of aviation,” he admitted.
According to the official, kyiv is also making progress towards the port of Berdyansk, the key to breaking the land corridor between Donbas and Crimea.
Another of the objectives is to gain control of Energodar, the town in the vicinity of which the largest nuclear power plant in Europe is located.
The morale of the Ukrainian troops has also improved thanks to the news coming from the United States. And it is that the president, Joe Biden, has given the “green light” for the prompt instruction of Ukrainian pilots in the use of F-16 fighters.
This was confirmed by Sabrina Singh, a Pentagon spokesperson, who explained that Denmark and the Netherlands are the countries that have shown the greatest interest in training Ukrainian candidates.
kyiv maintains that the planes are essential to be able to hammer Russian defensive positions, but also the logistics chains in the rear.
The Politico revisit reported last week that eight pilots are fluent in English and are waiting for the US and European countries to formally approve the training course.
In addition, he stressed that another twenty could start their English classes in the United Kingdom in a matter of weeks.
In turn, the German arms corporation Rheinmetall has bought 50 Leopard 1 tanks from the Belgian company OIP Land Systems.
The German newspaper Handelsblatt specified that Rheinmetall will repair these battle tanks at its Dusseldorf factory, after which it will deliver 30 of these Leopards to Kiev, although later the Deutsche Welle agency spoke only of 25 tanks.
The Wall Street Journal highlighted today that US cluster munitions, which arrived in the country in mid-July, are playing a fundamental role in the Ukrainian counteroffensive.
This class of ammunition is ideal for breaking enemy defensive lines by hitting concentrations of troops and motorized columns, as well as wooded areas that serve as hiding places for Russian troops.
Precisely, the Russian Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, today accused Washington of committing a “war crime” by trying to alleviate the shortage of ammunition for Western missile launchers with prohibited weapons.
“Washington has opted for a war crime by including cluster munitions prohibited by international conventions in the aid package,” Shoigu said during a meeting with the top brass of the Russian army.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project