Ukrainian forces claim to have recovered 37 km2, as part of its counter-offensive, in the east and south of the country, in one week. However, they also concede that Russian troops have advanced on other sectors of the front where they are particularly offensive. The Russian security services (FSB) for their part ensured that they had foiled a bomb attack prepared, according to them, by Kiev to assassinate the leader installed by Moscow in Crimea, a peninsula annexed in 2014.
Ukrainian forces launched a large-scale operation in early June to retake territories occupied by Russia, but gains have so far been limited due to a strong Russian defense and a lack of military air force and ammunition. ‘artillery. In the South, “the liberated territories have increased by 28.4 km2”, bringing to 158 km2 the total area recovered in this area since the launch of the counter-offensive, said Deputy Defense Minister Ganna Maliar.
In the east, where Ukrainian troops are fighting especially around the devastated city of Bakhmout, kyiv’s gains have only reached 9 km2, she said. “The enemy is resisting strongly, a very tough duel is underway,” Ms. Maliar said, as Moscow for months built defensive lines based on trenches and minefields.
On the other side of the front, the Russian army has launched attacks in the sectors of Avdiïvka, Mariïnka and Lyman, to which has been added since the end of last week that of Svatové. All of these areas are on the eastern front, where “hard fighting” is taking place, Ms. Maliar said on Sunday. On the Russian side, the security services, the FSB, claimed on Monday to have arrested a man accused of a bomb attempt on the life of the pro-Moscow leader of annexed Crimea, Sergei Aksionov.
According to the FSB, this man was “recruited by officers of the SBU”, Ukraine’s security services, and had undergone subversive intelligence training in Ukraine, including explosives. “The bomber did not have time to carry out his criminal intent because he was arrested while recovering an explosive device from a cache,” the FSB said.
Blamed on Kyiv by Moscow, several attacks that have killed or injured Russian occupation officials in Ukraine have taken place since the start of the Russian invasion in 2022. While analysts believe Ukraine has yet to launch the bulk of its freshly trained forces equipped with Western weapons in its counter-offensive, the apparent slowness of the operation, especially compared to the successes of Kiev’s previous counter-offensives in the northeast and south last year , seems to have aroused tensions.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, receiving Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Saturday, had criticized Kiev’s Western partners on the pace of implementation of the training of Ukrainian airmen, accustomed to Soviet MiGs and Sukhoi, to pilot F-16s. .
“There is no training mission schedule. I think some partners are dragging their feet. Why do they do it? I don’t know,” Mr. Zelensky said. The commander of the Ukrainian army Valery Zalouzhny was annoyed in an interview with the Washington Post on Friday by the impatience of Westerners to see progress on the ground against Russian forces.
“It pisses me off,” he said, while urging to speed up deliveries of the promised F-16s. US Chief of Staff Mark Milley, from Washington, replied that the US and its allies are doing what they can to send what Ukraine needs.
These developments on the ground come a week before an important NATO meeting in Vilnius, Lithuania, during which the allies must formulate a common position on the security guarantees they are ready to give to Ukraine, in the absence of a promise of accelerated membership.
Ukraine has made repeated statements in recent weeks asking for “clarity” about its prospects for joining the Alliance. Much to kyiv’s chagrin, US President Joe Biden warned on June 17 that Ukraine would not receive preferential treatment.
Volodymyr Zelensky demanded on Saturday that his country receive a “very clear and intelligible signal”, an “invitation” that his country can “become a full member of NATO after the war”.